1,721,074 research outputs found
[C-11]raclopride-PET studies of the Huntington's disease rate of progression: Relevance of the trinucleotide repeat length
No full textWe used [C-11]raclopride and positron emission tomography (PET) to assess the relationship between striatal dopamine D2 receptor binding, trinucleotide repeat number (GAG), and subject age in 10 asymptomatic and 8 symptomatic carriers of the Huntington's disease (HD) mutation. In both preclinical and symptomatic gene carriers, we found significant correlations between CAG repeat length and the ratio of percent loss in striatal D2 receptor binding divided by age. In accord with neuropathological studies, we obtained an intercept at 35.5 CAG repeats in the symptomatic HD patients. Nonetheless, we noted that the slopes of the correlation lines differed significantly for the presymptomatic and symptomatic cohorts. These PET results support the notion that the HD disease process is a function of trinucleotide length and age, and that the development of clinical signs and symptoms is associated with CAG repeat lengths greater than 35.5. However, our analysis also suggests that striatal degeneration may proceed in a nonlinear fashion. These findings have implications for the design of neuroprotective strategies for the treatment of HD
Learning and consolidation of visuo-motor adaptation in Parkinson’s disease
No full textWe have previously shown in normal subjects that motor adaptation to imposed visual rotation is significantly enhanced when tested few days later. This occurs through a process of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Here we ascertained whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) learn, improve, and retain new motor skills in the same way as normal subjects. We tested 16 patients in early stages of PD and 21 control subjects over two days. All subjects performed reaching movements on a digitizing tablet. Vision of the limb was precluded with an opaque screen; hand paths were shown on the screen with the targets' position. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the hand path on the screen was rotated by 30 degrees . In experiment 1, patients taking dopaminergic treatment and controls adapted to rotation with targets appearing in an unpredictable order. In experiment 2, drug-naïve patients and controls adapted to rotation in a less challenging task where target's appearance was predictable. Patients and controls made similar movements and adapted to rotation in the same way. However, when tested again over the following days, controls' performance significantly improved compared to training, while patients' performance did not. This lack of consolidation, which is present in the early stages of the disease and is independent from therapy, may be due to abnormal homeostatic processes that occur during sleep
The metabolic topography of essential blepharospasm: A focal dystonia with general implications
No full textObjective: To determine the metabolic topography of essential blepharospasm (EB). Background: EB is a cranial dystonia of unknown etiology and anatomic localization. The authors have used 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and PET with network analysis to identify distinctive patterns of regional metabolic abnormality associated with idiopathic torsion dystonia (ITD), as well as sleep induction during PET imaging to suppress involuntary movements, thereby reducing this potential confound in the analysis. Methods: Six patients with EB and six normal volunteers were scanned with FDG-PET. Scans were performed twice: once in wakefulness and once following sleep induction. The authors used statistical parametric mapping to compare glucose metabolism between patients with EB and control subjects in each condition. They also quantified the expression of the previously identified ITD-related metabolic networks in each subject in both conditions. Results: With active involuntary movements during wake..
Parkinson's disease tremor-related metabolic network: Characterization, progression, and treatment effects
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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