Search results for " SLE"

Sleep disordered breathing in medically stable patients with myasthenia gravis

2007

We investigate sleep and breathing in clinically stable myasthenia gravis (MG) patients and ask weather sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is causally linked with MG. Nineteen MG patients with a mean disease duration of 9.7 years underwent sleep studies in two consecutive nights. The primary outcome measure was the respiratory disturbance index (RDI) in terms of snoring and apneas/hypopneas. Further outcome measurements were total sleep time, sleep stage distribution and the number of arousals. A clinically relevant SDB in terms of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (defined as RDI > 10/h) was found in four patients. There were only a few central apneas (central apnea index: 0.19 +/- 0.4/h). We di…

Effects of adenotonsillectomy on neurocognitive and behavioural function in pediatric obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

2018

Effects of adenotonsillectomy on neurocognitive and behavioural function in pediatric obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Objectives: Aim of this study is to verify the presence of neurocognitive, neurobehavioral or sleep disturbances in children affected by adenotonsillar hypertrophy (ATH) and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) and verify their improvement after Adeno-Tonsillectomy (AT). Methods: Eighty children suffering from adenotonsillar hypertrophy and OSAS were recruited for AT in the ENT Department of the University of Palermo. All the children underwent clinical evaluation, including rhinofibroscopy for grading the obstruction due to the adenotonsillar hypertrophy (before and 6 …

Effects of sleep apnea and kidney dysfunction on objective sleep quality in nondialyzed patients with chronic kidney disease: an ESADA study

2020

Study Objectives: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often report poor sleep quality, but they commonly exhibit OSA. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of OSA severity and of estimated glomerular filtration rate impairment on objective sleep quality in nondialyzed patients with CKD, defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/min/1.73m2. Methods: Polysomnographic sleep characteristics were compared between patients with (n = 430) and without CKD (n = 6,639) in the European Sleep Apnea Database cohort. Comparisons were repeated in 375 patients with CKD and 375 control patients without CKD matched for sleep center, age, sex, and AHI, and in 310 matche…

La tutela della concorrenza nella Repubblica Popolare Cinese

2014

La tesi dal titolo “La tutela della concorrenza nella Repubblica Popolare Cinese” si propone di affrontare l’intricato problema dell’armonizzazione dei principi della concorrenza in un sistema economico in via di transizione quale quello cinese. L’attenzione sulla questione è stata stimolata dall’emanazione della legge antimonopoli, entrata in vigore nell’agosto del 2008, che ha conosciuto le sue prime applicazioni concrete nel corso di questi primi cinque anni . Cercando di non lasciarsi sviare dalla tentazione di giudicare la normativa antitrust paese asiatico sul presupposto di una presunta superiorità degli ordinamenti dei paesi occidentali, che in materia posseggono una tradizioni di o…

Verbal learning and memory and their associations with brain morphology and illness course in schizophrenia spectrum psychoses.

2012

The California Verbal Learning Test and structural brain imaging were administered to 57 subjects with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 94 controls in a general population sample. Cases had lower semantic cluster scores. Poorer verbal memory strategies were associated with longer duration of illness and heavier use of antipsychotic medication. After controlling for duration of illness, sex, and total gray matter, poorer verbal memory was associated with lower gray matter volume in the cingulate cortex, juxtapositional lobule, right superior temporal gyrus, and precuneus. After controlling for use of antipsychotic medication, there was an association between higher serial clustering and …

Association between cingulum bundle structure and cognitive performance: an observational study in major depression.

2009

AbstractBackgroundMajor depression can be regarded as a systemic neurobehavioral disorder resulting from dysfunction of the limbic-cortical networks. The cingulum bundle represents a major association fiber tract of those networks. The aim of our study was to determine the association of brain structural tissue markers of the cingulum bundle and cognitive function in patients with major depression.MethodsRegion-of-interest-based analyses of the middle-anterior and middle-posterior cingulum bundle fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) using color-coded diffusion-tensor imaging and neuropsychological assessment in 14 patients with major depression.ResultsFA of the middle-anteri…

Association between obstructive apnea syndrome during sleep and damages to anterior labyrinth: Our experience

2019

The obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is a chronic condition characterized by frequent episodes of collapse of the upper airways during sleep. It can be considered a multisystem disease. Among the districts involved, even the auditory system was seen to be concerned. It was enrolled a population of 20 patients after polysomnographic diagnosis of OSAS (Apnea Hypopnea Index > 10) and a control group of 28 healthy persons (Apnea Hypopnea Index < 5). Each patient has been subjected to Pure Tone Audiometry, Tympanometry, study of Acoustic Reflex, Otoacoustic Emissions and Auditory Brainstem Response. Moreover they were submitted to endoscopy of upper airway with Muller Maneuver and Epworth …

2017

The Cognitive reserve (CR) hypothesis was put forward to account for the variability in cognitive performance of patients with similar degrees of brain pathology. Compensatory neural activity within the frontal lobes has often been associated with CR. For the first time we investigated the independent effects of two CR proxies, education and NART IQ, on measures of executive function, fluid intelligence, speed of information processing, verbal short term memory (vSTM), naming, and perception in a sample of 86 patients with focal, unilateral frontal lesions and 142 healthy controls. We fitted multiple linear regression models for each of the cognitive measures and found that only NART IQ pre…

Multi-modality of polysomnography signals’ fusion for automatic sleep scoring

2019

Abstract Objective The study aims to develop an automatic sleep scoring method by fusing different polysomnography (PSG) signals and further to investigate PSG signals’ contribution to the scoring result. Methods Eight combinations of four modalities of PSG signals, namely electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG), electromyogram (EMG), and electrocardiogram (ECG) were considered to find the optimal fusion of PSG signals. A total of 232 features, covering statistical characters, frequency characters, time-frequency characters, fractal characters, entropy characters and nonlinear characters, were derived from these PSG signals. To select the optimal features for each signal fusion, …

2020

Abstract Efficient neuronal communication between brain regions through oscillatory synchronization at certain frequencies is necessary for cognition. Such synchronized networks are transient and dynamic, established on the timescale of milliseconds in order to support ongoing cognitive operations. However, few studies characterizing dynamic electrophysiological brain networks have simultaneously accounted for temporal non-stationarity, spectral structure, and spatial properties. Here, we propose an analysis framework for characterizing the large-scale phase-coupling network dynamics during task performance using magnetoencephalography (MEG). We exploit the high spatiotemporal resolution of…