JNNP Podcast

Time Matters - part 1: delay is “expensive” in all aspects of multiple sclerosis

Professor Emeritus Alastair Compston (University of Cambridge) discusses with JNNP’s Publisher Janet O'Flaherty the issues raised by the discussion “Brain health matters in multiple sclerosis” (MS), which was part of the international roundtable “Time Matters in MS”, organised by the BMJ and the JNNP on World MS Day 2017, in Lisbon.
Read more, watch the videos and access all the information about the event on the JNNP's website special page: http://jnnp.bmj.com/pages/time-matters-in-ms/.
“Time Matters in preventing disabilities from MS” was supported by an unrestricted educational grant from F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Roche Farmacêutica e Química.

Seven tesla MRI In Neurodegenerative Dementias

MRI is an important clinical tool to study dementia symptoms in vivo. However, certain pathologies (microbleeds, plaques, tangles) can evade current imaging techniques. Seven tesla (7T) MRI provides a potentially exciting new opportunity to visualise these pathologies in vivo. Dr. Elizabeth McKiernan (University of Cambridge) discusses the literature around 7T MRI, and its scope in neurodegenerative dementias.
Read the review in the JNNP website: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2017/03/03/jnnp-2016-315022.

Conversational Laughter In Dementia

Laughter serves a fundamental social purpose, the appropriate use of which requires recognition of social norms. So what happens when these interpersonal abilities are affected, such as in the frontotemporal dementias? Does use of laughter change too? Dr Peter Pressman (Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center, University of Colorado, USA) talks to Elizabeth Highton about observing conversational laughter in frontotemporal dementia. This paper was chosen for this month’s Editor’s Choice and can be found here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/5/418.

Narrative and Neurology: The Andrew Lees Experiment

Professor Andrew Lees discusses his book "Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment" with Dr Sean O’Sullivan and Elizabeth Highton. Andrew speaks to the importance of looking beyond one’s area of expertise for mentorship, the relationship between art and science in neurology, Parkinson's disease and how William Burroughs played an unlikely role in his own medical career.
You can read Sean O’Sullivan’s review of the book on the JNNP website: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/3/280.

April 2017: deconstructing dilemmas in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Both patient and editor's choices are discussed in this monthly episode of the JNNP podcast.
The clinical care of patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) can often be complex; a disease with a highly variable clinical course. Professor Bart Jacobs, from the Department of Neurology at Erasmus Medical Centre (Rotterdam) provides an overview of some of the dilemmas that may arise when treating patients with GBS. The full article: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/4/346.
In the second part of this podcast: The C9orf72 repeat expansion is reported to have a negative impact on prognosis in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Until now, researchers have not been able to examine the relationship between C9orf72 and factors such as age, site of onset or gender. Dr James Rooney discusses how he and colleagues examined the prognostic impact of the C9orf72 repeat expansion in more detail.
The full article is available here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/4/281.1.

Zika virus and Guillain-Barré Syndrome: what do we know?

There is concern that, despite being a rare complication of the Zika virus, we could see a steady rise in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). In preparation for this, it is important that clinicians are able to appropriately identify and differentiate between Zika-associated GBS and other neurological disorders. In this podcast, Professor Antonino Uncini (University ‘G’ d’Annunzio’, Chieti, Italy) discusses Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and it’s associations with Zika virus, as well as its clinical and electrophysiological subtypes.
Read the full paper by Uncini, A., Shahrizaila, N., & Kuwabara, S. here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/3/266.

Immunomodulatory therapy in advanced multiple sclerosis

Could currently available immunomodulatory therapies modify disability trajectories in patients with moderately advanced and advanced multiple sclerosis (MS)?
Tomas Kalincik, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Australia, discusses the findings from the MSbase cohort study with Elizabeth Highton.
Read the full article here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/88/3/196.

The relationship between orthostatic hypotension and cognitive impairment in α-synucleinopathies

Dr Mario Masellis and Dr. Sean Udow from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Canada, look at the potential association between orthostatic hypotension and cognitive impairment in α-synucleinopathies such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy.
Read the review published by JNNP here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2016/09/09/jnnp-2016-314123.abstract.

A clinical tool for predicting survival in motor neurone disease

Elizabeth Highton spoke to Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi from King’s College London about the development of a simple and clinically useful graphical model of predicting survival for motor neurone disease (MND) patients.
Read the article here: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2016/07/26/jnnp-2015-312908.abstract

Latitude and disease severity in Multiple Sclerosis

Elizabeth Highton and Prof. Bruce Taylor discuss higher latitudes and its association with earlier age of onset of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
The international study, published by the JNNP, links latitude to the age at which symptoms of MS first start. Each 10ᵒ increase in latitude is associated with a 10 month earlier onset of symptoms among those of European descent.
Read the full article here: https://goo.gl/BmHXFo.