We report 12 aquaporin-4 antibody-positive patients (12% of seropositive Mayo Clinic patients identified since 2005) whose initial presenting symptom of neuromyelitis optica was intractable vomiting. The initial evaluation in 75% was gastroenterologic. Vomiting lasted a median of 4 weeks (range, 2 days-80 weeks). Optic neuritis or transverse myelitis developed after vomiting onset in 11 patients (median interval, 11 weeks; range, 1-156). At last evaluation (median, 48 months after vomiting onset), 7 patients fulfilled neuromyelitis optica diagnostic criteria. Our clinical, pathologic and neuroimaging observations suggest the aquaporin-4-rich area postrema may be a first point of attack in neuromyelitis optica.

We report on a test to assess the dynamic brain function at high temporal resolution using magnetoencephalography (MEG) for 45-60 s. After fitting an autoregressive integrative moving average (ARIMA) model and taking the stationary residuals, all pairwise, zero-lag, partial cross-correlations P CC 0 ij and their z-transforms z 0 ij between i and j sensors were calculated, providing estimates of the strength and sign (positive, negative) of direct synchronous coupling at 1 ms temporal resolution. We found that subsets of z 0 ij successfully classified individual subjects to their respective groups (multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Sjögren's syndrome, chronic alcoholism, facial pain, healthy controls) and gave excellent external cross-validation results..

The neural encoding of serial order was studied in the motor cortex of monkeys performing a context-recall memory scanning task. Up to five visual stimuli were presented successively on a circle (list presentation phase), and then one of them (test stimulus) changed color; the monkeys had to make a single motor response toward the stimulus that immediately followed the test stimulus in the list. Correct performance in this task depends on memorization of the serial order of the stimuli during their presentation. It was found that changes in neural activity during the list presentation phase reflected the serial order of the stimuli; the effect on cell activity of the serial order of stimuli during their presentation was at least as strong as the effect of motor direction on cell activity during the execution of the motor response. This establishes the serial order of stimuli in a motor task as an important determinant of motor cortical activity during stimulus presentation and in the absence of changes in peripheral motor events, in contrast to the commonly held view of the motor cortex as just an "upper motor neuron."

PDA-001 infusions were safe and well tolerated in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients. No paradoxical worsening of lesion counts was noted with either dose.