AIMS Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive inflammatory neurological disease affecting myelin, neurons and glia. Demyelination and neurodegeneration of cortical grey matter contribute to a more severe disease, and inflammation of the forebrain meninges associates with pathology of the underlying neocortical grey matter, particularly in deep sulci. We assessed the extent of meningeal inflamma...

UNLABELLED Previous studies of samples from cranial meninges have created doubts about the existence of a virtual subdural space. We examined the ultrastructure of spinal meninges from three human cadavers immediately after death to see whether there is a virtual subdural space at this level. The arachnoid mater had two portions: a compact laminar portion covering the dural sac internal surface...

Retinoic acid (RA) is a diffusible molecule involved in early forebrain patterning. Its later production in the meninges by the retinaldehyde dehydrogenase RALDH2 coincides with the time of cortical neuron generation. A function of RA in this process has not been adressed directly as Raldh2-/- mouse mutants are embryonic lethal. Here, we used a conditional genetic strategy to inactivate Raldh2 ...

Neisseria meningitidis is a human-specific pathogen with capacity to cause septic shock and meningitis. It has been hypothesized that invasion of the central nervous system (CNS) is a complication of a bacteremic condition. In this study, we aimed to characterize the invasion route of N. meningitidis to the CNS. Using an intranasally challenged mouse disease model, we found that twenty percent ...

Antimicrobial peptides are present in most living species and constitute important effector molecules of innate immunity. Recently, we and others have detected antimicrobial peptides in the brain. This is an organ that is rarely infected, which has mainly been ascribed to the protective functions of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and meninges. Since the bactericidal properties of the BBB and men...

MR imaging was used to investigate normal and abnormal meningeal enhancement, with an emphasis on meningeal carcinomatosis. Three groups of patients were studied on a 1.5-T system. In group 1, the normal meninges were examined in 20 patients and were found to show fine linear enhancement in short segments, especially in a parasagittal distribution. In group 2, all gadolinium-enhanced head scans...

CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling has been reported to regulate three essential processes for the establishment of neural networks in different neuronal systems: neuronal migration, cell positioning and axon wiring. However, it is not known whether it regulates the development of A9-A10 tyrosine hydroxylase positive (TH(+)) midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons. We report here that Cxcl12 is expressed in th...