👤 Gisela M Terwindt

Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype influences the presence, course and severity of sporadic cerebral amyloid angiopathy (sCAA). We investigated the effect of the APOE ε4-allele on clinical and neuroradiological outcomes in mutation-carriers with Dutch-type hereditary (D-)CAA. Participants with D-CAA from a prospective cohort study, with data collected on history of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhages (sICH) and vascular risk factors, underwent 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to assess macrobleeds, cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), cortical superficial siderosis (cSS), enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS), white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume and WMH multispot lesions. Global cognition was measured using Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores. Associations between ≥1 APOE ε4-allele and age of first sICH, time to recurrence, cognition and radiological data were analyzed with adjustments for confounders. Eighty-one participants (mean age 47 years, 54% women, 38% with sICH history) were included. The APOE ε4-allele was not associated with earlier sICH onset (median age 56 versus 57 years; p = 0.6) or time to recurrence (5.0 versus 3.9 years; p = 0.4), nor was it associated with macrobleeds (β 2.0; 95%CI 2.4- -2.7; p = 0.4), CMBs (β 2.9; 95%CI 1.0-8.9; p = 0.06), cSS (aOR 0.5; 95%CI 0.1-2.0; p = 0.3), EPVS (aOR 0.4; 95%CI 0.1-1.5; p = 0.6), WMH volume (β 6.8; 95%CI -1.9-15.4; p = ), a multispot pattern (OR 0.7; 95%CI 0.2-2.7, p = 0.6), or cognition (β -0.3; 95%CI -0.4- -0.5; p = 0.5). APOE ε4 does not affect key clinical parameters or D-CAA neuroradiological markers and therefore does not explain the large variation in disease course in D-CAA. Show less

Migraine affects over a billion individuals worldwide but its genetic underpinning remains largely unknown. Here, we performed a genome-wide association study of 102,084 migraine cases and 771,257 controls and identified 123 loci, of which 86 are previously unknown. These loci provide an opportunity to evaluate shared and distinct genetic components in the two main migraine subtypes: migraine with aura and migraine without aura. Stratification of the risk loci using 29,679 cases with subtype information indicated three risk variants that seem specific for migraine with aura (in HMOX2, CACNA1A and MPPED2), two that seem specific for migraine without aura (near SPINK2 and near FECH) and nine that increase susceptibility for migraine regardless of subtype. The new risk loci include genes encoding recent migraine-specific drug targets, namely calcitonin gene-related peptide (CALCA/CALCB) and serotonin 1F receptor (HTR1F). Overall, genomic annotations among migraine-associated variants were enriched in both vascular and central nervous system tissue/cell types, supporting unequivocally that neurovascular mechanisms underlie migraine pathophysiology. Show less

Migraine and major depressive disorder (MDD) are common brain disorders that frequently co-occur. Despite epidemiological evidence that migraine and MDD share a genetic basis, their overlap at the molecular genetic level has not been thoroughly investigated. Using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and gene-based analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) genotype data, we found significant genetic overlap across the two disorders. LD Score regression revealed a significant SNP-based heritability for both migraine (h Show less