1,721,167 research outputs found
Ambulatorio - Server-based outpatients managing software
No full text"Ambulatorio" is a server-based outpatients managing software written in PHP and MySQL. User interface is in Italian only at the moment and is focused on patients with neurological disorders. It features:
Patients data manager (anagrafica)
Patients history with customizable structure (anamnesi strutturata)
Clinical scales such as Hoehn&Yahr, UPDRS, MMSE (scale cliniche)
Visit records
Search based on structured patients' history
Automated DB backup (thank to David G Walker BSc http://www.dwalker.co.uk)
Automatic generation of CODICE FISCALE (thank to Riccardo Frizzoni)
Statistics page with report of total visits in a year divided by typ
Reader response: Early weight loss in parkinsonism predicts poor outcomes: Evidence from an incident cohort study
No full textEmozioni e sistema nervoso: la forza della musica e il ruolo della neurofisiologia
No full textEmotions are constantly present in our daily lives, arising from external stimuli or from our thoughts and influencing our behaviour. Involuntary responses are mediated by the autonomic nervous system, while most of our actions are controlled by cortical output that we are aware of. Emotions are somewhere in between, we are not always aware of them, but they strongly influence our actions. The deepest and oldest part of our brain is involved in the generation of
emotions, connecting to all our organs and reaching the skin. Of the many emotions we can feel, anxiety is one of the most common and pervasive. It can negatively affect our cognitive performance, but music can powerfully modulate anxiety and many other emotions in both normal subjects and patients. Sympathetic skin response is a neurophysiological technique capable of detecting changes in skin impedande due to involuntary brief production of sweat as our autonomic nervous system follows emotions. This technique can demonstrate and measure the effect of music on our emotions
The rationale for motor learning in Parkinson's disease.
No full textParkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic progressive disorder mainly affecting the motor system. PD is only partially controlled by symptomatic dopaminergic treatment. Therefore, motor rehabilitation can be used in PD to reduce complications and to train patients in the use of compensatory movement strategies. Rehabilitative practice is largely dependent on the efficiency of motor learning, i.e. the acquisition of new abilities or the adaptation of pre-existing ones. Although patients with PD are able to improve their motor performance through practice, the amount and persistence of clinical benefit are uncertain. Both ''implicit'' (procedural) and ''explicit'' (declarative) features of motor learning have been extensively investigated in patients with PD using neuropsychological testing, serial reaction time paradigms, and analysis of reaching movements. Evidence from these studies suggests an early impairment of ''explicit'' learning in PD, while ''implicit'' learning is relatively preserved. The consolidation of learned motor tasks is defective in PD and the mechanisms of motor learning seem to be independent from dopamine-replacement therapy. The knowledge of motor learning in PD is critical in designing more effective rehabilitative protocols
Isolated Demyelination of Corpus Callosum Following Hypoxia
No full textCorpus callosum includes a large amount of axons with various degrees of myelination, interconnecting cerebral hemispheres. Tumors, demyelinating diseases, infections, trauma and metabolic diseases as well as vascular lesions may affect corpus callosum, often extending to other white matter areas of the brain. We describe the case of a 76 years old male patient with history of arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and normal pressure hydrocephalus, developing dysphagia during hospitalization. Ab-ingestis pneumonia
caused brain hypoxia and coma; brain magnetic resonance disclosed isolated demyelination of corpus callosum that was not present before hypoxia. Compared to neurons and astrocytes, oligodendrocytes are reported as particularly sensitive to hypoxia. Respiratory involvement without blood flow impairment could have lead to a prevalent oligodendrocytes damage, resulting in a selective demyelination of corpus callosum. Our patient indeed evolved into persistent vegetative state and died five months after hypoxic episode. This case report could give some insight about in vivo brain susceptibility to hypoxic damage
The anticonvulsant effect of citalopram as an indirect evidence of serotoninergic impairment in epilepsy
No full textDifferential modulation of motor evoked potential and silent period by activation of intracortical inhibitory circuits.
No full textObjectives: To investigate the effect of activation of intracortical inhibitory circuits, as tested by short interval (3 ms) paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a conditioning-test paradigm, on the electromyographic (EMG) pause (silent period, SP) following the motor evoked potential (MEP) in normal subjects.
Methods: SPs and MEPs were recorded from the right first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle during a tonic voluntary contraction (from 70 to 90% of the maximum). Using a focal coil, we compared the SP duration after single-pulse TMS, paired-pulse TMS and single-pulse TMS of reduced intensity such as to evoke MEPs matched in size to the conditioned ones after paired-pulse TMS. In addition, we compared in a control experiment the duration of the SP following matched size MEPs evoked, respectively, by focal TMS with preferential activation of indirect I1- or I3-waves.
Results: SP duration after paired-pulse TMS was significantly longer than after single-pulse TMS evoking MEPs of a similar size. In no case the SP duration was longer when focal TMS preferentially activated I1-waves.
Conclusions: The conditioning sub-threshold stimulus is more powerful in reducing the MEP size than in cutting down the subsequent EMG silence, suggesting that the neural circuits underlying MEP and SP are, at least in part, different
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