Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Comparative StudyComparison of indices of traumatic brain injury severity: Glasgow Coma Scale, length of coma and post-traumatic amnesia.
Classification of traumatic brain injury (TBI) severity guides management and contributes to determination of prognosis. Common indicators of TBI severity include Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores, length of coma (LOC) and duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA). ⋯ Predictors for estimating LOC, PTA and PTA-LOC intervals were determined and simple equations were developed. These equations will be helpful to clinicians, researchers and those counselling family members of patients with TBI.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Impact of collateral flow on tissue fate in acute ischaemic stroke.
Collaterals may sustain penumbra prior to recanalisation yet the influence of baseline collateral flow on infarct growth following endovascular therapy remains unknown. ⋯ Our data suggest that angiographic collateral grade and penumbral volume interactively shape tissue fate in patients undergoing endovascular recanalisation therapy. These angiographic and MRI parameters provide complementary information about residual blood flow that may help guide treatment decision making in acute cerebral ischaemia.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Preoperative fMRI predicts memory decline following anterior temporal lobe resection.
Anterior temporal lobe resection (ATLR) benefits many patients with refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) but may be complicated by material specific memory impairments, typically of verbal memory following left ATLR, and non-verbal memory following right ATLR. Preoperative memory functional MRI (fMRI) may help in the prediction of these deficits. ⋯ These findings suggest that preoperative memory fMRI may be a useful non-invasive predictor of postoperative memory change following ATLR and provide support for the functional adequacy theory of hippocampal function. They also suggest that fMRI may provide additional information, over that provided by neuropsychology, for use in the prediction of postoperative memory decline.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Effects of subthalamic deep brain stimulation on noun/verb generation and selection from competing alternatives in Parkinson's disease.
Impaired generation of verbs relative to nouns has been reported in Parkinson's disease (PD) and has been associated with the frontal pathophysiology of PD. The aim of the present study was to measure noun/verb generation abilities in PD and to determine whether noun/verb generation is affected by stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN). ⋯ Our results suggest that STN stimulation affects the ability to select from many competing lexical alternatives during verb generation.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Genes involved in the transforming growth factor beta signalling pathway and the risk of intracranial aneurysms.
The 19q13.3 locus for intracranial aneurysms (IA) partly overlaps with the 19q13 locus for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). A common genetic risk factor located in this locus for the two aneurysm types seems plausible. The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) signalling pathway plays a role in aortic aneurysms but may also play a role in aneurysms in general. In the combined region of the 19q13 loci for IA and AAA we identified two candidate genes that are both involved in the TGF-beta signalling pathway: hepsin (HPN) and the latent transforming growth factor beta-binding protein 4 (LTBP4). We hypothesised that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the HPN and LTBP4 genes are associated with IA. ⋯ Our findings suggest that variations in or near the HPN and LTBP4 genes do not play a role in the susceptibility to IA in the Dutch population.