Case Report: New-Onset Retinal Migraine After Transseptal Catheterization.

BACKGROUND: While new-onset migraine headaches and binocular visual aura have been reported after transseptal catheterization (TSC), this case suggests that retinal aura may emerge also after this procedure. CASE DESCRIPTION: This 38-year-old male with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation had received TSC and cryoablation, and subsequently developed isolated monocular aura phenomena. The first episode happened a few hours after the intervention and was not accompanied by headache or other aura phenomena. The patient's history was negative for migraine. Brain magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated 2 lacunar diffusion restrictions in the left medial cerebral artery territory that were most likely catheterization related. Over the next 14 days, 3 additional, stereotyped episodes (duration = 20-30 minutes) with zigzag lines and flickering small bright dots in the central visual field of one eye (moving laterally) occurred. A central scotoma was noted during one episode. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first case with retinal aura phenomena meeting International Classification of Headache Disorders diagnostic criteria for retinal migraine, suggesting that this rare migraine variant can be triggered by TSC.

Studying polyglutamine aggregation in Caenorhabditis elegans using an analytical ultracentrifuge equipped with fluorescence detection.

This work explores the heterogeneity of aggregation of polyglutamine fusion constructs in crude extracts of transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans animals. The work takes advantage of the recent technical advances in fluorescence detection for the analytical ultracentrifuge. Further, new sedimentation velocity methods, such as the multi-speed method for data capture and wide distribution analysis for data analysis, are applied to improve the resolution of the measures of heterogeneity over a wide range of sizes. The focus here is to test the ability to measure sedimentation of polyglutamine aggregates in complex mixtures as a prelude to future studies that will explore the effects of genetic manipulation and environment on aggregation and toxicity. Using sedimentation velocity methods, we can detect a wide range of aggregates, ranging from robust analysis of the monomer species through an intermediate and quite heterogeneous population of oligomeric species, and all the way up to detecting species that likely represent intact inclusion bodies based on comparison to an analysis of fluorescent puncta in living worms by confocal microscopy. Our results support the hypothesis that misfolding of expanded polyglutamine tracts into insoluble aggregates involves transitions through a number of stable intermediate structures, a model that accounts for how an aggregation pathway can lead to intermediates that can have varying toxic or protective attributes. An understanding of the details of intermediate and large-scale aggregation for polyglutamine sequences, as found in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's Disease, will help to more precisely identify which aggregated species may be involved in toxicity and disease.