Neurological research
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Neurological research · Nov 2011
Cerebrospinal fluid leak after microsurgical surgery in vestibular schwannomas via retrosigmoidal craniotomy.
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak is still a common complication in surgery of vestibular schwannoma, increasing morbidity and prolonging hospital stay. Our single center study was performed to determine the incidences of CSF leaks after microsurgical removal of vestibular schwannoma via a retrosigmoidal approach with two different surgical closure techniques. ⋯ Suture and occlusion of the dura is an important step to prevent CSF leak and postoperative infection. By comparing sandwich technique and single-layer dural sealing, no significant difference could be shown.
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Neurological research · Nov 2011
Randomized Controlled TrialLong-term antalgic effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of motor cortex and serum beta-endorphin in patients with phantom pain.
To assess the long-term analgesic effect of repetitive transcranial stimulation (rTMS) on chronic phantom pain using high frequency stimulation and to measure the serum beta-endorphin level pre- and post-rTMS. ⋯ These results confirm that five daily sessions of rTMS over motor cortex can produce long lasting pain relief in patients with phantom pain and it might be related to an elevation of serum beta-endorphin concentration.
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Neurological research · Nov 2011
EEG non-linear feature extraction using correlation dimension and Hurst exponent.
In this work, we evaluated the differences between epileptic electroencephalogram (EEG) and interictal EEG by computing some non-linear features. Correlation dimension (CD) and Hurst exponent (H) were calculated for 100 segments of epileptic EEG and 100 segments of interictal EEG. A comparison was made between epileptic EEG and interictal EEG in those non-linear parameters. ⋯ This indicates that both epileptic and interictal EEGs show long-range anticorrelation. The value of Hurst exponent of epileptic EEG signals is lower than that of interictal EEG signals, showing that the degree of anticorrelation of epileptic EEG signals is larger than that of interictal EEG. Hence, the non-linear parameters such as CD and Hurst exponent can help interpret epileptic and interictal EEGs and their neurodynamics.
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Neurological research · Nov 2011
THR-18, a 18-mer peptide derived from PAI-1, is neuroprotective and improves thrombolysis by tPA in rat stroke models.
The thrombolytic treatment of stroke is limited by a narrow therapeutic time window and is associated with significant adverse side effects. To improve this situation, the modulation of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) activity by a synthetic plasminogen activator inhibitor-1-derived 18-mer peptide (THR-18) was examined in two models of stroke in rats. ⋯ The results support the use of THR-18 together with tPA in the thrombolytic therapy of stroke, in order to achieve better patency, less tPA-induced damage, and possibly a widening of tPA therapeutic time window.