Microglia have been implicated in various neurological and psychiatric disorders in rodent and human postmortem studies. However, the dynamic actions of microglia in the living human brain have not been clarified due to a lack of studies dealing with in situ microglia. Herein, we present a novel technique for developing induced microglia-like (iMG) cells from human peripheral blood cells. An optimized cocktail of cytokines, GM-CSF and IL-34, converted human monocytes into iMG cells within 14 days. The iMG cells have microglial characterizations; expressing markers, forming a ramified morphology, and phagocytic activity with various cytokine releases. To confirm clinical utilities, we developed iMG cells from a patient of Nasu-Hakola disease (NHD), which is suggested to be directly caused by microglial dysfunction, and observed that these cells from NHD express delayed but stronger inflammatory responses compared with those from the healthy control. Altogether, the iMG-technique promises to elucidate unresolved aspects of human microglia in various brain disorders.

The prevalence of dementia was similar to previous reports, but, contrary to results of virtually all studies conducted in developed countries and those recently conducted in Japan, almost half of the cases in the present study appeared to have VaD with neuroradiologic confirmation.

No abstract

No abstract

Patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) present a profound personality change, social misconduct, overeating, and stereotyped behavior. We examined the hypothesis that many of the behavioral symptoms of FTLD will respond to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Sixteen FTLD patients were treated with an SSRI (fluvoxamine maleate) in an open 12-week trial. Treatment responses for stereotyped behavior and other neurobehavioral symptoms were evaluated by the Stereotypy Rating Inventory and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory. The behavioral symptoms, especially stereotyped behaviors of FTLD, significantly improved after treatment. Randomized, placebo- and other SSRI-controlled trials may improve available treatments.

The authors found a high frequency of delusions, particularly of delusions of theft and suggested that gender was associated with the expression of delusions in Japanese patients with AD.

The rate at which subjects with MMI/ND whose conditions shifted to dementia was the same as the rate that subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) shifted to dementia in a previous report. It would be useful to identify groups of high-risk individuals for dementia by simple diagnostic methods.

We investigated the neural substrate of the delusion of theft in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nine AD patients with only one type of delusion (delusions of theft) and nine age, cognitive function-matched AD patients without any type of delusions were selected from 334 consecutive outpatients of Ehime University Hospital. All subjects underwent (99m)Tc-HMPAO SPECT scanning, and SPECT images were analyzed by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). AD patients with delusions of theft showed significant hypoperfusion in the right medial posterior parietal region compared to patients without delusions. Our data suggest that attention impairment or lack of awareness of illness caused by right parietal dysfunction might play a role in producing the delusion of theft.