Longitudinal characterization of biomarkers for spinal muscular atrophy.

Objective: Recent advances in understanding Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) etiopathogenesis prompted development of potent intervention strategies and raised need for sensitive outcome measures capable of assessing disease progression and response to treatment. Several biomarkers have been proposed; nevertheless, no general consensus has been reached on the most feasible ones. We observed a wide range of measures over 1 year to assess their ability to monitor the disease status and progression.

Striatal functional connectivity changes following specific balance training in elderly people: MRI results of a randomized controlled pilot study.

Background: Practice-induced effects of specific balance training on brain structure and activity in elderly people are largely unknown.

Aim: In the present study, we investigated morphological and functional brain changes following slacking training (balancing over nylon ribbons) in a group of elderly people.

Methods: Twenty-eight healthy volunteers were recruited and randomly assigned to the intervention (mean age: 62.

Biplanar MRI for the assessment of the spinal cord in multiple sclerosis.

Objective: To investigate the entire spinal cord (SC) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with biplanar MRI and to relate these MRI findings to clinical functional scores.

Methods: Two hundred and two patients (140 women, 62 men 24-74 years, Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores 0-7.5) were investigated clinically and with biplanar MRI.

Non-communicating syringomyelia: a feature of spinal cord involvement in multiple sclerosis.

In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) non-communicating syringomyelia (NCS) has been described as an incidental finding in case studies and small case series. NCS in MS patients commonly leads to uncertainty particularly as the clinical picture of NCS is variable and surgical therapy may be considered. Up to date little is known about the prevalence and clinical importance of NCS in MS.