Journal of the neurological sciences
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Review Case Reports
Leukoencephalopathy with cerebral calcification and cysts: Cases report and literature review.
Leukoencephalopathy with calcifications and cysts (LCC) is a rare disease in which parenchymal cysts and calcifications within a widespread leukoencephalopathy can cause a broad spectrum of neurological symptoms. We present cases with adult LCC and discuss previously described entities in relevant literature. ⋯ Our findings suggested that LCC could be diagnosed by clinical presentations, neuroimaging and gene detection, and biopsy might not be necessary. Therefore, we propose a diagnostic flow chart for neuroimaging in leukoencephalopathy, cerebral calcifications and cysts.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
At-home tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex improves visual short-term memory in mild vascular dementia.
Previous studies have shown that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) led to an improvement of various cognitive functions in patients with Alzheimer dementia, early affected by short-term memory deficits. Since this approach has not been evaluated in the context of vascular dementia, which rather affects the velocity of cognitive responses, we aimed at improving these functions by applying repetitive sessions of anodal tDCS. ⋯ In patients with mild vascular dementia, anodal tDCS of the left DLPFC is able to produce additional effects to cognitive training on visual short-term memory, verbal working memory, and executive control.
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Thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) is a homotrimeric glycoprotein which modulates a wide range of biological functions. Elevated level of TSP-1 in plasma was reported to be correlated with intracerebral hemorrhage. Our study was designed to investigate the relationship between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) TSP-1 levels and clinical outcomes in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). ⋯ Upregulation of TSP-1 may involve in the pathological process of aSAH and might be a risk factor of future adverse prognosis of aSAH.
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The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism has been proposed to be associated with increased risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) and have a specific impact on dopamine-mediated prefrontal executive function in an inverted-U curve manner. We explored the influence of this genetic polymorphism on prefrontal executive function in a well-established Chinese cohort of early PD patients with no current or past history of motor fluctuations or dyskinesias. ⋯ Our results demonstrate that COMT Val158Met polymorphism is probably not associated with increased risk of PD, but has an effect on prefrontal executive function interacting with gender and dopaminergic medication.