Friedreich and dominant ataxias: quantitative differences in cerebellar dysfunction measurements.

BACKGROUND: Sensitive outcome measures for clinical trials on cerebellar ataxias are lacking. Most cerebellar ataxias progress very slowly and quantitative measurements are required to evaluate cerebellar dysfunction. METHODS: We evaluated two scales for rating cerebellar ataxias: the Composite Cerebellar Functional Severity (CCFS) Scale and Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA), in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) and controls. We evaluated these scales for different diseases and investigated the factors governing the scores obtained. All patients were recruited prospectively. RESULTS: There were 383 patients with Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA), 205 patients with SCA and 168 controls. In FRDA, 31% of the variance of cerebellar signs with the CCFS and 41% of that with SARA were explained by disease duration, age at onset and the shorter abnormal repeat in the FXN gene. Increases in CCFS and SARA scores per year were lower for FRDA than for SCA (CCFS index: 0.123±0.123 per year vs 0.163±0.179, P<0.001; SARA index: 1.5±1.2 vs 1.7±1.7, P<0.001), indicating slower cerebellar dysfunction indexes for FRDA than for SCA. Patients with SCA2 had higher CCFS scores than patients with SCA1 and SCA3, but similar SARA scores. CONCLUSIONS: Cerebellar dysfunction, as measured with the CCFS and SARA scales, was more severe in FRDA than in patients with SCA, but with lower progression indexes, within the limits of these types of indexes. Ceiling effects may occur at late stages, for both scales. The CCFS scale is rater-independent and could be used in a multicentre context, as it is simple, rapid and fully automated. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02069509.

Serum Levels of Progranulin Do Not Reflect Cerebrospinal Fluid Levels in Neurodegenerative Disease.

Altered progranulin levels play a major role in neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's dementia (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), even in the absence of GRN mutations. Increasing progranulin levels could hereby provide a novel treatment strategy. However, knowledge on progranulin regulation in neurodegenerative diseases remains limited. We here demonstrate that cerebrospinal fluid progranulin levels do not correlate with its serum levels in AD, FTD and ALS, indicating a differential regulation of its central and peripheral levels in neurodegeneration. Blood progranulin levels thus do not reliably predict central nervous progranulin levels and their response to future progranulin-increasing therapeutics.

NPC1 is enriched in unexplained early onset ataxia: a targeted high-throughput screening.

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NP-C) is a rare autosomal-recessive neurodegenerative disease featuring pleiotropic neurological, psychiatric and visceral manifestations. Since many of the adult manifestations can be non-specific or missed, NP-C often goes undetected in adult-onset patients. Here we hypothesized that targeted high-throughput sequencing allows identifying NP-C patients among subjects with unexplained early-onset ataxia (EOA) and, moreover, that this population is enriched for NPC1 mutations. From 204 consecutive EOA patients, all 108 subjects with an established diagnosis were removed (including 4 NPC1 patients), yielding a target cohort of 96 subjects with unexplained EOA, but without primary suspicion of NP-C. This cohort was investigated for NPC1/NPC2 mutations using a high-coverage HaloPlex gene panel including 122 ataxia genes. Among 96 samples, we identified 4 known NPC1 mutations, 3 novel NPC1 missense variants of uncertain significance (VUS) and 1 novel NPC2 missense VUS. The total mutant allele frequency (8/192 = 4.17 %) was significantly enriched compared with control population data (1.57 %; p = 0.011). Two NPC1-positive patients were identified (both with non-specific incipient clinical features), giving a NPC1 patient frequency of 2/96 = 2.1 % in unexplained EOA and of 6/204 = 2.9 % in the total EOA series. NPC1 mutations are substantially enriched in unexplained EOA, demonstrating EOA as a risk-group for NP-C disease. Targeted high-throughput sequencing allows to identify also those NP-C patients with non-specific conditions where the diagnosis has initially been missed. This method does not require having considered NP-C during differential diagnosis, but allows identification of NP-C as part of the default analysis.

Brain-computer interfacing in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Implications of a resting-state EEG analysis.

Despite decades of research on EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), there is still little known about how the disease affects the electromagnetic field of the brain. This may be one reason for the present failure of EEG-based BCI paradigms for completely locked-in ALS patients. In order to help understand this failure, we have recorded resting state data from six ALS patients and thirty-two healthy controls to investigate for group differences. While similar studies have been attempted in the past, none have used high-density EEG or tried to distinguish between physiological and non-physiological sources of the EEG. We find an ALS-specific global increase in gamma power (30-90 Hz) that is not specific to the motor cortex, suggesting that the mechanism behind ALS affects non-motor cortical regions even in the absence of comorbid cognitive deficits.

High prevalence of NMDA receptor IgA/IgM antibodies in different dementia types.

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively determine the frequency of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) receptor (NMDAR) autoantibodies in patients with different forms of dementia. METHODS: Clinical characterization of 660 patients with dementia, neurodegenerative disease without dementia, other neurological disorders and age-matched healthy controls combined with retrospective analysis of serum or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the presence of NMDAR antibodies. Antibody binding to receptor mutants and the effect of immunotherapy were determined in a subgroup of patients. RESULTS: Serum NMDAR antibodies of IgM, IgA, or IgG subtypes were detected in 16.1% of 286 dementia patients (9.5% IgM, 4.9% IgA, and 1.7% IgG) and in 2.8% of 217 cognitively healthy controls (1.9% IgM and 0.9% IgA). Antibodies were rarely found in CSF. The highest prevalence of serum antibodies was detected in patients with "unclassified dementia" followed by progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal syndrome, Parkinson's disease-related dementia, and primary progressive aphasia. Among the unclassified dementia group, 60% of 20 patients had NMDAR antibodies, accompanied by higher frequency of CSF abnormalities, and subacute or fluctuating disease progression. Immunotherapy in selected prospective cases resulted in clinical stabilization, loss of antibodies, and improvement of functional imaging parameters. Epitope mapping showed varied determinants in patients with NMDAR IgA-associated cognitive decline. INTERPRETATION: Serum IgA/IgM NMDAR antibodies occur in a significant number of patients with dementia. Whether these antibodies result from or contribute to the neurodegenerative disorder remains unknown, but our findings reveal a subgroup of patients with high antibody levels who can potentially benefit from immunotherapy.

X-linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, Arts syndrome, and prelingual non-syndromic deafness form a disease continuum: evidence from a family with a novel PRPS1 mutation.

BACKGROUND: X-linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 5 (CMTX5), Arts syndrome, and non-syndromic sensorineural deafness (DFN2) are allelic syndromes, caused by reduced activity of phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthetase 1 (PRS-I) due to loss-of-function mutations in PRPS1. As only few families have been described, knowledge about the relation between these syndromes, the phenotypic spectrum in patients and female carriers, and the relation to underlying PRS-I activity is limited. METHODS: We investigated a family with a novel PRPS1 mutation (c.830A > C, p.Gln277Pro) by extensive phenotyping, MRI, and genetic and enzymatic tests. RESULTS: The male index subject presented with an overlap of CMTX5 and Arts syndrome features, whereas his sister presented with prelingual DFN2. Both showed mild parietal and cerebellar atrophy on MRI. Enzymatically, PRS-I activity was undetectable in the index subject, reduced in his less affected sister, and normal in his unaffected mother. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that CMTX5, Arts syndrome and DFN2 are phenotypic clusters on an intrafamilial continuum, including overlapping phenotypes even within individuals. The respective phenotypic presentation seems to be determined by the exact PRPS1 mutation and the residual enzyme activity, the latter being largely influenced by the degree of skewed X-inactivation. Finally, our findings show that brain atrophy might be more common in PRPS1-disorders than previously thought.