Report of the Working Group on the Effects of Extraction of Marine Sediments on the Marine Ecosystem, WGEXT, 11-15 April 2011, Delft, the Netherlands

ICES WGEXT Report 201

Parkinson’s disease: evolution of cognitive impairment and CSF Aβ₁−₄₂ profiles in a prospective longitudinal study

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the evolution of cognitive impairment in relation to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) profiles of amyloid-β (Aβ), total-Tau and phosphorylated-Tau in Parkinson’s disease (PD). METHODS: Prospective, longitudinal, observational study up to 10 years with follow-up every 2  years. We assessed CSF profiles in 415 patients with sporadic PD (median age 66; 63% men) and 142 healthy controls (median age 62; 43% men). RESULTS: Patients with PD with low CSF Aβ₁−₄₂ levels at baseline were more often cognitively impaired than patients with intermediate and high Aβ₁−₄₂ levels. Sixty-seven per cent of the patients with low Aβ₁−₄₂ levels at baseline and normal cognition developed cognitive impairment during follow-up, compared with 41% and 37% of patients having intermediate and high CSF Aβ₁−₄₂ levels. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox regression revealed that patients with low CSF Aβ₁−₄₂ levels at baseline developed cognitive impairment more frequently and earlier during follow-up. CONCLUSION: We conclude that in patients with sporadic PD, low levels of Aβ₁−₄₂ are associated with a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment earlier in the disease process at least in a subgroup of patients

Determination of nutrient salts by automatic methods both in seawater and brackish water: the phosphate blank

9 páginas, 2 tablas, 2 figurasThe main inconvenience in determining nutrients in seawater by automatic methods is simply solved: the preparation of a suitable blank which corrects the effect of the refractive index change on the recorded signal. Two procedures are proposed, one physical (a simple equation to estimate the effect) and the other chemical (removal of the dissolved phosphorus with ferric hydroxide).Support for this work came from CICYT (MAR88-0245 project) and Conselleria de Pesca de la Xunta de GaliciaPeer reviewe