These patients were diagnosed with either MCS or vegetative state based on performance on the JFK Coma Recovery Scale and the diagnostic criteria for MCS as recommended by the Aspen Consensus Conference Work-group. Both patient groups were further separated into those that had traumatic brain injury and those that had non-traumatic brain injures (anoxia, tumor, hydrocephalus, infection). The patients were assessed multiple times over a period of 12 months post injury using the Disability Rating Scale (DRS) which ranges from a score of 30=dead to 0=no disabilities. The results show that the DRS scores for the MCS subgroups showed the most improvement and predicted the most favorable outcomes 12 months post injury. Amongst those diagnosed with MCS, DRS scores were significantly lower for those with non-traumatic brain injuries in comparison to the vegetative state patients with traumatic brain injury. DRS scores were also significantly lower for the MCS non-traumatic brain injury group compared to the MCS traumatic brain injury group. Pairwise comparisons showed that DRS scores were significantly higher for those that suffered from non-traumatic brain injuries than those with traumatic brain injuries. For the patients in vegetative states there were no significant differences between patients with non-traumatic brain injury and those with traumatic brain injuries. Out of the 100 patients studied, 3 patients fully recovered (had a DRS score of 0).
The defective degradation of glycogen by the autophagy-lysosome pathway is, at least in part, independent of impaired regulation of mTORC1 and is restored, in cultured cells, by the combined use of PKB/Akt and mTORC1 pharmacological inhibitors. Diagnosis
Tuberous sclerosis complex is diagnosed with clinical and genetic tests. There are many different mutations in the TSC1 and TSC2 genes that have been identified in individuals with TSC. A pathogenic mutation in the gene prevents the proteins from being made or inactivates the proteins. If such a pathogenic mutation is found then this alone is sufficient to diagnose TSC. However, some mutations are less clear in their effect, and so not sufficient alone for diagnosis. Between 1 in 10 and 1 in 4 of individuals with TSC have no mutation that can be identified. Once a particular mutation is identified in someone with TSC, this mutation can be used to make confident diagnoses in other family members.For clinical diagnosis, there isnt one sign that is unique (pathognomonic) to TSC, nor are all signs seen in all individuals. Therefore, several signs are considered together, classed as either major or minor features. An individual with two major features, or one major feature and at least two minor features can be given a definite diagnosis of TSC. If only one major feature or at least two minor features are present, the diagnosis is only regarded as possibly TSC. TSC can be first diagnosed at any stage of life. Prenatal diagnosis is possible by chance if heart tumours are discovered during routine ultrasound.