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"Rhupus syndrome" is a rare clinical condition, which is related to anti-CCP antibody, characterized by overlapping clinical and immunologic features of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Previous reports mentioned that patients have more RA-associated damage, and little organic damage associated with SLE. The severe organ damage, especially central nervous system involvement has been reported to be rare in patients with rhupus syndrome. Here, we report a very rare concurrence of RA, SLE and diffuse lupus encephalopathy in a Chinese woman.

The current study combined structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) to investigate both gray matter density (GMD) and white matter integrity (WMI) in 18 pianists and 21 age-matched non-musicians. The pianists began their piano training at a mean age of 12. Voxel-based morphometry of the sMRI data showed that the pianists had higher GMD in the left primary sensorimotor cortex and right cerebellum. Voxel-based analysis of the DT-MRI data showed that pianists had higher fractional anisotropy (FA) (indicating higher WMI) in the right posterior limb of the internal capsule. The sMRI and DT-MRI results indicate that both the GMD and WMI of pianists may exhibit movement-related increases during adolescence or even early adulthood compared with non-musicians.

Objective: To identify the brain structural differences of schizophrenia patients and their parents between those with family history and those sporadic cases., Methods: High resolution T1 weighted images were obtained using 3T MR from 10 familial patients and 10 sporadic patients matched with age, sex, years of education and duration of disease. All patients were in their first episode of care. Twenty unaffected parents of the patients (8 for familial cases, 12 for sporadic cases) and 20 normal controls were also examined. The images were preprocessed according to the optimized VBM protocol. Student t test was performed to test the differences of the gray matter density (GMD) of the patients and their parents between the groups with and without family histories, and between the patient groups and the normal controls., Results: Compared with the sporadic group, significant reduce of GMD was observed in bilateral thalamus in both familial schizophrenia patients and their parents. Compared with normal controls, both familial and sporadic schizophrenia patients showed lower GMD in many areas including bilateral insula, right temporal lobe, right occipital lobe, left lenticula, right cerebellum and left rectal gyrus extending to anterior cingulated gyrus. Only familial patients showed lower GMD in the right thalamus. Familial parents also showed lower GMD in several areas including right insula extending to right temporal lobe and right parietal lobule., Conclusion: Familial schizophrenia is associated with genetically related structural abnormalities, especially in the bilateral thalamus. The brain structural differences can explain, at least in part, the symptom differences between familial and sporadic schizophrenia.