Journal of neurology
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Journal of neurology · Oct 2018
Impaired brain response to odors in patients with varied severity of olfactory loss after traumatic brain injury.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a major public health problem may lead to olfactory dysfunction. However, little is known about brain responses to odors in TBI olfactory loss patients. Nineteen healthy controls and forty TBI olfactory dysfunctional patients (19 with hyposmia and 21 with anosmia) underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan when two odors (peach and coffee) were presented intranasally using a computerized olfactometer. ⋯ Similar correlations were seen in the insula and orbitofrontal cortex for patients with anosmia. In conclusion, results from the current study are evidences for the impairment of central nervous processing of odor perception at all levels of the olfactory system among TBI patients with olfactory loss. In addition, the duration after the initial injury may have an impact on the severity of olfactory dysfunction.
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Journal of neurology · Oct 2018
Diagnostic and prognostic power of CSF Tau in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that still lacks reliable diagnostic biomarkers. This study aims to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic potential of CSF total Tau (t-Tau), phospho-Tau (p-Tau) and p-Tau/t-Tau ratio in ALS patients using CSF neurofilament light (NFL) as the reference biomarker. ⋯ CSF t-Tau showed no reliable diagnostic significance but the relation between the high levels of CSF t-Tau and short survival suggests the potential prognostic role of this biomarker in ALS. However, CSF NFL was confirmed to be the most reliable and efficient tool for diagnosis and prediction of clinical progression and survival in ALS patients.