[Is pure red cell aplasia a new extra digestive manifestation of celiac disease?]

Persistent γδ T large granular lymphocytosis in a patient with refractory pure red cell aplasia, celiac disease, and chronic hepatitis B infection

The disorders of large granular lymphocytes include reactive proliferation as well as indolent or aggressive neoplasms of cytotoxic T cells, γδ T cells, and natural killer (NK) cells. They are associated with autoimmune and infectious disorders and have varied immunophenotypic features. We report a case, which highlights this complex association of autoimmune and infectious diseases with large granular lymphocytosis, the overlapping spectrum of large granular lymphocyte leukemias, and γδ T cell lymphomas as well as the difficulties in the diagnosis and management of these indolent T cell lymphomas in the usual clinical settings.

Celiac disease with pure red cell aplasia: an unusual hematologic association in pediatric age group

Anemia in Celiac disease (CD) is usually hypoproliferative, reflecting impaired absorption of essential nutrients like iron and various vitamins. We report a 2-year-old boy with Celiac disease and severe anemia due to pure red cell aplasia, diagnosed by bone marrow biopsy. This rare, unexplained extra digestive manifestation responded to gluten free diet.

An exploratory study on facial emotion recognition capacity in beginning Alzheimer's disease

OBJECTIVE

It was the aim of this study to investigate facial emotion recognition (FER) in the elderly with cognitive impairment.

METHOD

Twelve patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 12 healthy control subjects were asked to name dynamic or static pictures of basic facial emotions using the Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test and to assess the degree of their difficulty in the recognition task, while their electrodermal conductance was registered as an unconscious processing measure.

RESULTS

AD patients had lower objective recognition performances for disgust and fear, but only disgust was accompanied by decreased subjective FER in AD patients. The electrodermal response was similar in all groups. No significant effect of dynamic versus static emotion presentation on FER was found.

CONCLUSION

Selective impairment in recognizing facial expressions of disgust and fear may indicate a nonlinear decline in FER capacity with increasing cognitive impairment and result from progressive though specific damage to neural structures engaged in emotional processing and facial emotion identification. Although our results suggest unchanged unconscious FER processing with increasing cognitive impairment, further investigations on unconscious FER and self-awareness of FER capacity in neurodegenerative disorders are required.