Results of the whole-brain voxel-based analyses.

<p>First row: The brain regions that exhibited regional cerebral glucose metabolic reductions in the 60 PD patients relative to 14 normal volunteers (p<0.05 uncorrected, extent threshold of 100 voxels). Second row and below: The brain regions in which the resting CMRglc was correlated with the RTs in the various psychophysical tasks (Global: second row, Local: third row, Mixed: fourth row) and the shift cost (fifth row) (<i>p</i><0.001 uncorrected, extent threshold of 100 voxels). PD, Parkinson’s disease; R, right; L, left.</p

Schematic illustrations of the psychophysical tasks.

<p>In both the Global and Local tasks, compound letter stimuli appeared after a 2-second presentation of a visual cue that indicated whether the target was a global or local letter. The subjects were instructed to respond orally to the target component of each compound letter stimulus as quickly as possible. In these tasks, the subjects maintained their attention on a single component of the compound letters (either the local or global component of the stimuli), and they were not required to reorient their attention. However, in the Mixed task, the cue that indicated the target component of the compound letter changed from trial to trial in a pseudorandom manner. The task required that the subjects switch their attention on the basis of the cue that was presented to them on each trial.</p

The results of the ROI-based stepwise multiple regression analyses.

<p>7 ROIs are shown in different colors: right DLPFC  =  red, left DLPFC  =  cyan, left VLPFC  =  yellow, right TPO  =  purple, left TPO  =  green, medial parietal cortex  =  white, and left posterior IT  =  blue. The scatterplots illustrate the relationship between the psychophysical task performance scores and the FDG-uptake values in the ROIs. DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; TPO, temporo-parieto-occipital junction; posterior IT, posterior inferior temporal cortex; FDG, ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose.</p

Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with PD and control participants.

<p>PD, Parkinson’s disease; MMSE, Mini Mental State Examination; CDR, Clinical Dementia Rating; NPI, Neuropsychiatric Inventory; UPDRS-III, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale-motor score; L, left; R, right; B, bilateral.</p

Additional file 2: of Human central nervous system astrocytes support survival and activation of B cells: implications for MS pathogenesis

Figure S1. Confirming activation of human astrocytes. Astrocytes were cultured for 24 h and were either left unstimulated or were stimulated with IFNγ (10 ng/ml) and IL-1β (10 ng/ml). After 24 h, the astrocytes were washed thoroughly and fresh medium was added. After an additional 24 h in culture, at which time cultures were imaged and supernatants were collected for subsequent measurement of astrocyte-secreted IL-6 by ELISA. Compared to unstimulated astrocytes (a), stimulated astrocytes exhibited activated morphology (b) and significantly-enhanced production of IL-6 (c; p = 0.0016; paired t-test). (TIFF 3951 kb

Additional file 3: of Human central nervous system astrocytes support survival and activation of B cells: implications for MS pathogenesis

Figure S2. Effects of astrocytes cytokine neutralization on B cell survival and activation. B cells from HC were either cultured alone, or with stimulated astrocyte conditioned-medium (ACM), or with ACM pre-treated with neutralizing antibodies to IL-6 (a, b; anti-IL6: aIL-6), IL-15 (c, d; anti-IL-15: aIL-15) or BAFF (e, f; anti-BAFF: aBAFF); or pre-treated with corresponding isotype control antibodies. After 2 days of culture B cell viability was assessed using ANNEXIN V and 7AAD staining, and CD86 expression was measured by flow cytometry (representative experiment). (TIFF 4226 kb