Positron emission tomography (PET) with flumazenil, a specific antagonist of the benzodiazepine binding site of GABAAR, demonstrated that hypofunction of the inhibitory GABA system in the cerebral cortex is accompanied by neurologic manifestations and local hyperperfusion in a patient with acute aseptic encephalitis

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (Iseki et al. 2009). A similar state could be evoked by anti-GABABR antibody in our patient. Anyway, precise mechanisms of alterations in cerebral perfusion induced by the anti-GABABR antibody remain to be elucidated by the further researches. Conflict of Interest A patent application for the use of GABAB receptor as a diagnostic test has been filed by Dr. Dalmau. The rest of the authors have no conflicts of interest.
Alzheimer Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical disease (AD) is the most common cause of neurodegenerative dementia among elderly patients. It is now well recognized as a public health emergency for the 21st century. By an estimate based on data from the 2000 census, there will Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical be 13.5 million cases by the year 2050 unless treatments are developed to prevent or slow progression of the disease (Hebert et al. 2003). The absence of biomarkers for detecting AD and tracking its progression renders discovery of new treatments more difficult. At this time, the diagnosis cannot be made with confidence in the absence of detailed cognitive

testing. These cognitive tests are time consuming

and can be difficult to interpret if the participant is not adequately engaged. Some clinical trials in recent years have enrolled patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI—a condition characterized by memory Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical impairment without dementia) and evaluated rates Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of conversion from MCI to AD as an outcome measure (Salloway et al. 2004; Petersen et al. 2005; Thal et al. 2005; Feldman et al. 2007). While it is true that drugs for preventing conversion are highly desirable, conversion has some undesirable properties for an outcome measure. Conversion does not take place suddenly and can be difficult to identify with certainty. Rates of conversion are low and variable, with 6–15% of amnestic MCI patients AZD1152-HQPA datasheet converting to Alzheimer’s disease each year. This means that large numbers of MCI for patients must be recruited and followed for a long period of time before it is possible to discern a difference in conversion rates between two randomized groups of participants in a clinical trial. Biomarkers offer the hope of rapid and unambiguous diagnosis, precise tracking of disease severity, and improvements over existing methods for evaluating the efficacy of interventions. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans for the current study were acquired using 18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), and will be referred to hereafter as FDG-PET or PET scans.