Janice Wong

Objectives: Cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX) is a rare inherited neurodegenerative disorder in bile acid synthesis. The natural history of neurological abnormalities in CTX is not well understood. The object of this study was to determine neurological progression in CTX. Methods: A literature search on PubMed for "cerebrotendinous xanthomato...

Background: Living with hunger and fear of not having enough food is a growing worldwide concern. In our previous cross-sectional study, we found that food insecurity was associated with poor cognitive function, but the direction of this relation remains unclear. Objective: We investigated whether food insecurity is associated with subsequent co...

BACKGROUND Food insecurity ‐ living with hunger and fear of not having enough food ‐ is a growing worldwide concern, due to an imbalance between rapidly increasing demand for food and limited access to good quality foods. In our previous cross‐sectional study, we found that food insecurity was associated with poor cognitive function, but the direct...

Objective: To examine risk factors for REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) in a large-scale community-based study. Methods: This community-based study included 12,784 Chinese adults (10,556 men and 2,228 women, aged 24 years or older) who were free of Parkinson disease and dementia in 2012. Probable RBD (pRBD) status was determined by a validated...

Harlequin syndrome is the colorful description given to the condition of unilateral flushing and sweating of the face, neck, and upper chest.¹ It is attributed to the disruption of sympathetic fibers on the side contralateral to the flushing. Although the etiology of Harlequin syndrome remains unclear, the flushing response may represent a compensa...

Background and purpose: Our aim was to provide estimates of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in 2050 for the African population by region, sex and age strata. Methods: A literature search was performed in October 2014 in PubMed for population-based studies of TBI in different geographical locations. Articles were selected from Kenya (model 1), New Z...

Distancing (i.e. construing oneself as dissimilar to a negatively-stereotyped group) preserves self-esteem and may benefit other domains of subjective well-being. Head and neck cancer (HNC) is stigmatized because major risk factors include avoidable lifestyle variables (smoking, alcohol consumption, and human papilloma virus). Because the benefits...

Background We describe trends in participation by investigators from low- and middle-income countries (LMCs) in publications describing oncology randomized control trials (RCTs) over a decade.Methods We used Medline to identify RCTs published in English from 1998 to 2008 evaluating treatment in lung, breast, colorectal, stomach and liver cancers. D...

Microfinance is a popular intervention for poverty, but the intersection between microfinance and neurologic disorders in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) has yet to be fully explored. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide small loans to impoverished clients who may otherwise not have access to loans, with which they can start their own e...

The association between restless legs syndrome (RLS) and Parkinson disease has been extensively studied, but the temporal relationship between the two remains unclear. We thus conduct the first prospective study to examine the risk of developing Parkinson disease in RLS. Prospective study from 2002-2010. United States. There were 22,999 US male hea...

Abstract We review the relationship between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the development of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) or secondary parkinsonism. Limited by methodological issues such as recall bias and confounding risk factors, epidemiological studies on the association between TBI and idiopathic PD have so far yielded mixed results....

Astrocytic dysfunction is implicated in epilepsy through many proposed molecular mechanisms, but there is also a clinicopathologic entity of epilepsy featuring astrocytic inclusions.(1) At least 17 cases of early-onset epilepsy with eosinophilic, hyaline astrocytic inclusions have been reported since the early 1990s.(2-8) Most of these cases also i...

Background: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the term coined for the neurodegenerative disease often suspected in athletes with histories of repeated concussion and progressive dementia. Histologically, CTE is defined as a tauopathy with a distribution of tau-positive neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) that is distinct from other tauopathies,...

Background: Life-threatening diseases, such as head and neck cancer (HNCa), can stimulate the emergence of a new disease-specific self-concept. We hypothesized that (i) negative cancer-stereotypes invoke distancing, which inhibits the adoption of a disease-specific self-concept and (ii) patient characteristics, disease and treatment factors, and c...

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNCa) introduces numerous stressors. We developed the Cancer-Related Stressors Checklist (CRSC), which documents exposure to seven categories of common stressors and emotional distress. We surveyed HNCa survivors and examined associations among exposure to cancer-related stressors, illness intrusiveness (i.e., can...

Pallidonigroluysian atrophy is a rare neurodegenerative disease characterized by degeneration of the globus pallidus, substantia nigra, and subthalamic nucleus. Few studies have comprehensively documented the clinical and pathological features of pallidonigroluysian atrophy. A systematic review of all published cases of pallidonigroluysian atrophy...

Cockayne syndrome (CS) (MIM 133540, 216400) is an autosomal recessive syndrome that features growth failure, neurological dysfunction, premature aging and dementia [1]. Many CS cases are associated with mutations in the gene that encodes for Cockayne syndrome B (CSB), which functions in DNA repair [2]. Mice deficient in CSB exhibit progressive loss...

Pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) DBS has emerged as a potential intervention for patients with gait and balance disorders. However, targeting this nucleus can be challenging. We report on the first neuropathological analyses after PPN-DBS surgery in advanced progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Two patients with PSP underwent unilateral PPN-DBS surg...

6087 Background: Lower costs and fewer regulatory barriers make clinical trials in LMCs attractive, but little is known about characteristics of such trials and roles of investigators from LMCs. We describe trends in participation of investigators from LMCs in oncology RCTs over a decade. Methods: We used Medline to identify all RCTs published in E...

Leukocytes arrested on inflamed endothelium via integrins are subjected to force imparted by flowing blood. How leukocytes respond to this force and resist detachment is poorly understood. Live-cell imaging with Lifeact-transfected U937 cells revealed that force triggers actin polymerization at upstream α4β1 integrin adhesion sites and the adjacent...

Cerebral hyaline astrocytic inclusions have been observed in a subset of patients with early onset epilepsy, brain structural anomalies, and developmental delay, which indicates that it may represent a unique clinicopathologic entity. To further characterize this condition we use proteomics to investigate differentially expressed proteins in epilep...

We review the characteristics of adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia(ALSP) and determine prevalence of behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) features in ALSP. Clinical and pathological information was abstracted from histopathologically confirmed ALSP cases identified by a systematic literature s...

This article explores the ethics of paying research participants for studies involving more than minimal risk using arguments grounded in morality, logic and pragmatism, as well as patient responses from a focused qualitative study. The authors argue that payment of research participants is ethically unacceptable. Balanced against the probability o...

Differences in patient adherence to various disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) are not well understood. The goal of this study was to evaluate adherence of adult MS patients in Ontario with public drug plan coverage to various DMDs: intramuscular interferon beta-1a (i.m. IFNβ-1a, Avonex), subcutaneous interfe...

Human trafficking is a human rights violation prevalent globally. Current guidelines highlight healthcare professionals' key role in responding to human trafficking, emphasizing the importance of medical education in raising awareness of trafficking. To assess pre-clerkship medical students' awareness of human trafficking and attitudes towards lear...

As past literature has focused on support needs of patients with malignant brain tumours, the support needs of patients with benign brain tumours have largely been overlooked. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the supportive care and resource needs of patients undergoing craniotomy for benign brain tumours. Individual, semi-structured inter...

Delays in the operating room have a negative effect on its efficiency and the working environment. In this prospective study, we analyzed data on perioperative system delays. One neurosurgeon prospectively recorded all errors, including perioperative delays, for consecutive patients undergoing elective procedures from May 2000 to February 2009. We...

e16506 Background: Globalization of clinical trials has facilitated access to the latest medical interventions for patients and investigators from low- and middle-income countries (LMCs) but raises some ethical concerns. We explored the trends in participation of investigators from LMCs in phase III lung cancer trials during the past decade and tri...

T Tauri stars are variable stars that are in an early phase of evolution, in which accretion and contraction to the main sequence are still taking place. Their photometric variability is complex; it takes place on a variety of timescales, due to a variety of physical processes. Periodic variability occurs due to rotation and the presence of cool or...