Effects of sex hormonal levels and phases of the menstrual cycle in the processing of emotional faces

Several neuropsychiatry disorders have shown a sexual dimorphism in their incidence, symptom profile and therapeutic response. A better understanding of the impact of sex hormones in emotional processing sexual dimorphism could bring tight to this important clinical finding. Some studies have provided evidence of sex differences in the identification of emotional faces, however, results are inconsistent and such inconsistency could be related to the lack of experimental control of the sex hormone status of participants. More recently, a few studies evaluated the modulation of facial emotion recognition by the phase of the menstrual cycle and sex hormones, however, none of them directly compared these results with a group of men. We evaluated the accuracy of facial emotion recognition in 40 healthy volunteers. Eleven women were assigned to early follicular group, nine women to the ovulatory group and 10 women to luteal group, depending on the phase of menstrual cycle, and a group of 10 men were also evaluated. Estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels were assessed. The performance of the groups in the identification of emotional faces varied depending on the emotion. Early follicular group were more accurate to perceive angry faces than all other groups. Sadness was more accurately recognized by early follicular group than by luteal group and regarding the recognition of fearful faces a trend to a better performance and a significantly higher accuracy was observed, respectively, in the early follicular group and in the ovulatory group, in comparison to men. In women, estrogen negatively correlated to the accuracy in perception of angry mate faces. Our results indicate sex hormones to be implicated in a sexual dimorphism in facial emotion recognition, and highlight the importance of estrogen specifically in the recognition of negative emotions such as sadness, anger and fear. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of the performance of normal elderly in a limb praxis protocol: Influence of age, gender, and education

Limb praxis can be influenced by age, gender, and education. The present Study investigated the influence of these variables on gesture production by healthy elderly Subjects. We evaluated 96 individuals divided into two age groups (60-74 and 75-88 years). Each group contained 48 men and 48 women and was subdivided into four groups according to education: illiterates and 1-3, 4-7, and 8 or more years of education. Individuals were requested to carry Out tasks oil verbal command and imitation. There were no differences between the performance of men and women, while older individuals performed worse than their younger counterparts. Regarding educational level, three major groups emerged: illiterates, individuals with 1-7 years of education, and those with 8 or more years of education. In conclusion, age and education significantly influenced the performance of individuals in limb praxis tests. (JINS, 2009, 157 618-622.)

Novel Pathogenic Mutations and Copy Number Variations in the VPS13A Gene in Patients With Chorea-Acanthocytosis

Chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc) is a rare autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder caused by loss of function mutations in the vacuolar protein sorting 13 homolog A (VPS13A) gene that encodes chorein. It is characterized by adult-onset chorea, peripheral acanthocytes, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. In the present study, we performed a comprehensive mutation screen, including sequencing and copy number variation (CNV) analysis, of the VPS13A gene in ChAc patients. All 73 exons and flanking regions of VPS13A were sequenced in 35 patients diagnosed with ChAc. To detect CNVs, we also performed real-time quantitative PCR and long-range PCR analyses for the VPS13A gene on patients in whom only a single heterozygous mutation was detected. We identified 36 pathogenic mutations, 20 of which were previously unreported, including two novel CNVs. In addition, we investigated the expression of chorein in 16 patients by Western blotting of erythrocyte ghosts. This demonstrated the complete absence of chorein in patients with pathogenic mutations. This comprehensive screen provides an accurate and useful method for the molecular diagnosis of ChAc. (C) 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.