Gelijke behandeling: oordelen en commentaar 2004

bookFDR De bescherming van fundamentele rechten in een integrerend Europa ou

Genetic variation underlying cognition and its relation with neurological outcomes and brain imaging

Cognition in adults shows variation due to developmental and degenerative components. A recent genome‐ wide association study identified genetic variants for general cognitive function in 148 independent loci. Here, we aimed to elucidate possible developmental and neurodegenerative pathways underlying these genetic variants by relating them to functional, clinical and neuroimaging outcomes. This study was conducted within the population‐based Rotterdam Study (N=11,496, mean age 65.3±9.9 years, 58.0% female). We used lead variants for general cognitive function to construct a polygenic score (PGS), and additionally excluded developmental variants at multiple significance thresholds. A higher PGS was related to more years of education (β=0.29, p=4.3x10‐7 ) and a larger intracranial volume (β=0.05, p=7.5x10‐4 ). To a smaller extent, the PGS was associated with less cognitive decline (βΔG‐factor=0.03, p=1.3x10‐3 ), which became non‐significant after adjusting for education (p=1.6x10‐2 ). No associations were found with daily functioning, dementia, parkinsonism, stroke or microstructural white matter integrity. Excluding developmental variants attenuated nearly all associations. In conclusion, this study suggests that the genetic variants identified for general cognitive function are acting mainly through the developmental pathway of cognition. Therefore, cognition, assessed cross‐sectionally, seems to have limited value as a biomarker for neurodegeneration

PRPH2 mutation update: in silico assessment of 245 reported and 7 novel variants in patients with retinal disease

Mutations in PRPH2, encoding peripherin-2, are associated with the development of a wide variety of inherited retinal diseases (IRDs). To determine the causality of the many PRPH2 variants that have been discovered over the last decades, we surveyed all published PRPH2 variants up to July 2020, describing 720 index patients that in total carried 245 unique variants. In addition, we identified seven novel PRPH2 variants in eight additional index patients. The pathogenicity of all variants was determined using the ACMG guidelines. With this, 107 variants were classified as pathogenic, 92 as likely pathogenic, one as benign, and two as likely benign. The remaining 50 variants were classified as variants of uncertain significance. Interestingly, of the total 252 PRPH2 variants, more than half (n = 137) were missense variants. All variants were uploaded into the Leiden Open source Variation and ClinVar databases. Our study underscores the need for experimental assays for variants of unknown significance to improve pathogenicity classification, which would allow us to better understand genotype-phenotype correlations, and in the long-term, hopefully also support the development of therapeutic strategies for patients with PRPH2-associated IRD.Ophthalmic researc

Melioidosis in travelers: An analysis of Dutch melioidosis registry data 1985–2018

Background: Melioidosis, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, is an opportunistic infection across the tropics. Here, we provide a systematic overview of imported human cases in a non-endemic country over a 25-year period. Methods: All 5

Brain-based classification of youth with anxiety disorders: transdiagnostic examinations within the ENIGMA-Anxiety database using machine learning

Neuroanatomical findings on youth anxiety disorders are notoriously difficult to replicate, small in effect size and have limited clinical relevance. These concerns have prompted a paradigm shift toward highly powered (that is, big data) individual-level inferences, which are data driven, transdiagnostic and neurobiologically informed. Here we built and validated supervised neuroanatomical machine learning models for individual-level inferences, using a case–control design and the largest known neuroimaging database on youth anxiety disorders: the ENIGMA-Anxiety Consortium (N = 3,343; age = 10–25 years; global sites = 32). Modest, yet robust, brain-based classifications were achieved for specific anxiety disorders (panic disorder), but also transdiagnostically for all anxiety disorders when patients were subgrouped according to their sex, medication status and symptom severity (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.59–0.63). Classifications were driven by neuroanatomical features (cortical thickness, cortical surface area and subcortical volumes) in fronto-striato-limbic and temporoparietal regions. This benchmark study within a large, heterogeneous and multisite sample of youth with anxiety disorders reveals that only modest classification performances can be realistically achieved with machine learning using neuroanatomical data.NWORubicon 019.201SG.022Advanced Behavioural Research MethodsHealth and Well-bein

Bolwerken als stadsparken: Nederlandse stadswandelingen in de 19e en 20e eeuw

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