Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Mar 2009
Psychiatric profile and attention deficits in postural tachycardia syndrome.
Patients with postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) often appear anxious and report inattention. Patients with POTS were formally assessed for psychiatric disorders and inattention and compared with patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and control subjects. ⋯ Patients with POTS do not have an increased lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders. Although they may seem anxious, they do not have excess cognitive anxiety. They do experience significant inattention which may be an important source of disability.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Mar 2009
Case ReportsAn extensive spinal epidural abscess successfully treated conservatively.
A spinal epidural abscess (SEA) is an uncommon condition, appearing in 0.2-2 cases per 10,000 hospital admissions. Urgent surgical decompression in combination with long term antibiotics is the common treatment of choice for SEA. However, in some cases, a non-surgical treatment can also be considered. In this case report, a patient is presented with SEA extending from C2 to L3 which was successfully treated with antibiotic therapy without surgical intervention.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Feb 2009
Case ReportsCRMP5 antibodies found in a patient with limbic encephalitis and myasthenia gravis.
Collapsin response mediator protein 5 (CRMP5) antibodies are often associated with thymoma or small cell lung cancer and paraneoplastic syndromes such as limbic encephalitis (LE). A patient is described with myasthenia gravis who, following thymectomy and immunosuppression, acquired a viral infection and developed LE and increased levels of serum CRMP5 antibodies. The cognitive symptoms improved and CRMP5 antibody levels decreased after plasma exchange, suggesting that CRMP5 antibodies may have contributed to the development of LE.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Feb 2009
Memory impairment in multiple sclerosis: correlation with deep grey matter and mesial temporal atrophy.
MRI research in multiple sclerosis (MS) samples reveals pathology in both the cerebral cortex and deep grey matter (DGM). The classical subcortical dementia hypothesis has been ascribed to MS and is supported by studies highlighting the role of thalamic atrophy in neuropsychological outcomes. However, the importance of mesial temporal lobe (MTL) atrophy in MS is largely untested and poorly understood. New structural imaging techniques permit volumetric measures of multiple regions within the MTL lobe and DGM. ⋯ For the first time, the predictive validity of MTL and DGM atrophy were simultaneously compared with MS using reliable and validated neuropsychological measures. This study found that both compartments play significant but different roles in the amnesia of MS.