Search results for "Degenerative disease"
showing 10 items of 250 documents
High-frequency rTMS improves time perception in Parkinson disease.
2004
Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) are impaired in time processing. The authors investigated the effects of high-frequency (5 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in patients with PD performing a time reproduction task. The authors found significant improvement in time processing induced by rTMS when trains were applied over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) but not over the supplementary motor area, suggesting that the circuit involving the basal ganglia and the DLPFC might constitute the neural network subserving time perception.
The serum level of free testosterone is reduced in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
2002
Sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting upper and lower motoneurons. There is an approximately 2:1 higher incidence of ALS in men compared to women, and this has raised the hypothesis of an involvement of sex hormones in the etiopathogenesis of the disorder. In this work, the serum levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), 17-betaestradiol, free and total testosterone were measured in 35 patients with defined or probable ALS, according to the El-Escorial/WFN revisited criteria, and compared to those obtained from 57 disease controls, matched for age and gender to the ALS group. We found no differences between ALS cases and …
Association between Cognitive Performance and Cortical Glucose Metabolism in Patients with Mild Alzheimer’s Disease
2004
<i>Background:</i> Neuronal and synaptic function in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is measured in vivo by glucose metabolism using positron emission tomography (PET). <i>Objective:</i> We hypothesized that neuronal activation as measured by PET is a more sensitive index of neuronal dysfunction than activity during rest. We investigated if the correlations between dementia severity as measured with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and glucose metabolism are an artifact of brain atrophy. <i>Method:</i> Glucose metabolism was measured using [<sup>18</sup>F]fluorodeoxyglucose PET during rest and activation due to audiovisual stimulation in 13 m…
Serial position effects in dementia of the Alzheimer type.
1998
<b>Background: </b>The aim of the present study was to analyse serial position effects for immediate and delayed free recall in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and controls. <b>Experiment 1:</b> 44 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer-type and 24 non-demented controls were asked for immediate and delayed free recall of 12 schematic drawings of common objects presented at the rate of 10 s/picture. Steep primacy effects were obtained at all delays in controls. By contrast, primacy effects were significantly impaired in patients with dementia at all delays of recall. Small immediate and delayed recall recency effects were found in both, patients and cont…
Time estimation in Alzheimer's disease and the role of the central executive.
2004
The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of short-term memory and attention in time estimation. For this purpose we studied prospective time verbal estimation in 21 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and compared their performance with that of 21 matched normal controls in two different conditions: during a digit span task and during an attentional task. Results showed that the performance of AD patients was significantly worse than that of the controls; the interaction between group and condition was significant. We suggest a role of attentional-executive functions in prospective time estimation.
Motor intracortical inhibition in PD: L-DOPA modulation of high-frequency rTMS effects
2007
Dopaminergic drugs and deep brain stimulation restore cortical inhibition in Parkinson disease (PD) patients. High-frequency rTMS was also found to increase cortical inhibition in PD but its therapeutic effect is still controversial. Here we hypothesize that, if dopaminergic drugs reverse to normal cortical excitability in M1, the effect of high-frequency (hf)-rTMS in PD patients could depend on whether they are in a medicated or unmedicated state. The present study aims to explore the lasting effects of sub-threshold hf rTMS trains over M1 on cortical inhibition in patients with "on" and without "off" L-DOPA treatment. Fourteen PD patients were examined twice while "on" and "off" medicatio…
Increased blood mercury levels in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
1998
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder that leads to dementia and death. In addition to several genetic parameters, various environmental factors may influence the risk of getting AD. In order to test whether blood levels of the heavy metal mercury are increased in AD, we measured blood mercury concentrations in AD patients (n = 33), and compared them to age-matched control patients with major depression (MD) (n = 45), as well as to an additional control group of patients with various non-psychiatric disorders (n = 65). Blood mercury levels were more than two-fold higher in AD patients as compared to both control groups (p = 0.0005, and p = 0.0000, respectively). In…
CSF APPsα and Phosphorylated Tau Protein Levels in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia of Alzheimer's Type
2008
We exploratively measured APPs alpha, a secreted fragment of the non-amyloidogenic cleavage of amyloid precursor protein via a-secretase, and tau protein phosphorylated at threonine 181 (p tau) in the cerebrospinal fluid of 10 patients with mild cognitive impairment, 20 patients with dementia of Alzheimer's type, and 10 controls. Cerebrospinal fluid APPs alpha and p tau levels were correlated with cognitive performance. P tau levels were significantly elevated in mild cognitive impairment and in patients with dementia of Alzheimer's type, APPs alpha levels were significantly reduced in patients with dementia of Alzheimer's type compared to the controls. APPs alpha levels were associated wit…
Percutaneous Pedicle-Lengthening Osteotomy in Minimal Invasive Spinal Surgery to Treat Degenerative Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: A Single-Center Prelimina…
2018
Background Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is a narrowing of the spinal canal due to spinal degeneration, and its main clinical symptom is neurogenic claudication. Surgical treatment is pursued for patients who do not improve with conservative care. Patients with symptomatic LSS who also have significant medical comorbidities, although clearly in need of intervention, are unattractive candidates for traditional open lumbar decompressive procedures. Thus it is important to explore minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat select patients with LSS. Methods This retrospective case series evaluated the clinical and radiographic outcomes of a new minimally invasive procedure to treat LSS: pe…
The hematopoietic factor G-CSF is a neuronal ligand that counteracts programmed cell death and drives neurogenesis.
2005
G-CSF is a potent hematopoietic factor that enhances survival and drives differentiation of myeloid lineage cells, resulting in the generation of neutrophilic granulocytes. Here, we show that G-CSF passes the intact blood-brain barrier and reduces infarct volume in 2 different rat models of acute stroke. G-CSF displays strong anti-apoptotic activity in mature neurons and activates multiple cell survival pathways. Both G-CSF and its receptor are widely expressed by neurons in the CNS, and their expression is induced by ischemia, which suggests an autocrine protective signaling mechanism. Surprisingly, the G-CSF receptor was also expressed by adult neural stem cells, and G-CSF induced neurona…