Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology
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To assess the temporal relationship between skin nerve denervation and regeneration (dermal and intra-epidermal fibres, IENF) and functional changes (CO(2) laser-evoked potentials, LEPs, and quantitative sensory tests, QST) after topical cutaneous application of capsaicin. ⋯ Assessing skin biopsies by PGP9.5 immunostaining alone may miss significant diagnostic and prognostic information regarding regenerating nerve fibres, if other approaches are neglected, e.g. LEPs or GAP-43 immunostaining.
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Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is used for focus localization in presurgical evaluation of patients with focal epilepsies. In this proof-of-concept study, general anesthesia with etomidate was used to improve effectiveness of MEG-recordings. ⋯ These results could facilitate larger studies on the usefulness and safety of general anesthesia with etomidate that record and localize epileptic activity in patients with focal epilepsy by MEG.
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Rhythms on electroencephalography (EEG) are known to slow with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), however electroencephalographic bicoherence analysis, one of the methods to examine EEG synchronization, which is necessary for the understanding of the network regulation involved, has been poorly examined in this period. ⋯ CPB caused the EEG de-synchronous features, which are not quantified by the BIS algorithm. It has the possibility to increase the vulnerability of nociceptive perception.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Controlled Clinical Trial
Slow (1 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) induces a sustained change in cortical excitability in patients with Parkinson's disease.
Low-frequency (< or =1 Hz) rTMS (LF-rTMS) can reduce excitability in the underlying cortex and/or promote inhibition. In patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) several TMS elicited features of motor corticospinal physiology suggest presence of impaired inhibitory mechanisms. These include shortened silent period (SP) and slightly steeper input-output (I-O) curve of motor evoked potential (MEP) size than in normal controls. However, studies of LF-rTMS effects on inhibitory mechanisms in PD are scarce. In this companion paper to the clinical paper describing effects of four consecutive days of LF-rTMS on dyskinesia in PD (Filipović et al., 2009), we evaluate the delayed (24h) effects of the LF-rTMS treatment on physiological measures of excitability of the motor cortex in the same patients. There are very few studies of physiological follow up of daily rTMS treatments. ⋯ The results confirm the existence of a residual after-effect of consecutive daily applications of rTMS that might be relevant to the clinical effect that was observed in this group of patients and could be further exploited for potential therapeutic uses.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
A new clinical scale to grade the impairment of median nerve in carpal tunnel syndrome.
In carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) distribution of paresthesias is related to the degree of the nerve impairment. To improve the clinical ability in detecting the damage severity, we have introduced the criteria "distribution of paresthesias" in a previous clinical scale: the historical-objective scale (Hi-Ob). ⋯ The new scale may be useful in routine examination and for scientific purposes.