Publications by authors named "Albert F G Leentjens"

Article Synopsis
  • Researchers are looking for better ways to treat people with Parkinson's disease by using their specific symptoms and risks to choose treatments.
  • Experts from a group called the Movement Disorders Society made 19 recommendations on how to customize treatment based on individual patient characteristics.
  • These recommendations help doctors consider future challenges, like memory problems, and how to prevent worsening symptoms, but they are not strict rules and can be changed for each patient.
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The International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS) created a task force (TF) to provide a critical overview of the Parkinson's disease (PD) subtyping field and develop a guidance on future research in PD subtypes. Based on a literature review, we previously concluded that PD subtyping requires an ultimate alignment with principles of precision medicine, and consequently novel approaches were needed to describe heterogeneity at the individual patient level. In this manuscript, we present a novel purpose-driven framework for subtype research as a guidance to clinicians and researchers when proposing to develop, evaluate, or use PD subtypes.

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Article Synopsis
  • Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is being explored as an effective treatment for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with various potential targets in the brain, especially around the anterior limb of the internal capsule and ventral striatum.
  • A study involving 82 OCD patients identified two key stimulation sites linked to significant symptom improvements: one near the anterior limb of the internal capsule and another near the inferior thalamic peduncle, while also showing that stimulation at certain locations can lead to better outcomes for depression and anxiety.
  • The findings suggest that refining the targeting of DBS could enhance treatment effectiveness and help optimize DBS programming for patients already receiving therapy.
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Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a highly efficient, evidence-based therapy to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life in movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia, which is also being applied in several psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, when they are otherwise resistant to therapy.

Summary: At present, DBS is clinically applied in the so-called open-loop approach, with fixed stimulation parameters, irrespective of the patients' clinical state(s). This approach ignores the brain states or feedback from the central nervous system or peripheral recordings, thus potentially limiting its efficacy and inducing side effects by stimulation of the targeted networks below or above the therapeutic level.

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Article Synopsis
  • The article discusses advancements in a specific scientific field, focusing on new methodologies or findings.
  • It aims to address previous inaccuracies or outdated information in prior research.
  • The corrections made in this article are crucial for researchers to ensure they are using the most reliable and updated data for future studies.
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Background: Anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been associated with grey matter changes and functional changes in anxiety-related neuronal circuits. So far, no study has analyzed white matter (WM) changes in patients with PD and anxiety.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify WM changes by comparing PD patients with and without anxiety, using diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI).

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Background: Whereas the treatment of motor symptoms in Huntington's disease (HD) receives much attention, less is known about the treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Objective: We aim to give an overview of psychotropic drug use in the treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms across disease stages in HD.

Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study of psychotropic drug prescriptions in a large longitudinal database of HD patients, Enroll HD.

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Cognitive impairment is a debilitating symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to establish an accurate multivariate machine learning (ML) model to predict cognitive outcome in newly diagnosed PD cases from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI). Annual cognitive assessments over an 8-year time span were used to define two cognitive outcomes of (i) cognitive impairment, and (ii) dementia conversion.

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Introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a heterogeneous disorder with great variability in motor and non-motor manifestations. It is hypothesized that different motor subtypes are characterized by different neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms, but the underlying correlates in cerebral connectivity remain unknown. Our aim is to compare brain network connectivity between the postural instability and gait disorder (PIGD) and tremor-dominant (TD) subtypes, using both a within- and between-network analysis.

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Introduction: Gamma-knife Ventral Capsulotomy (GVC) has been suggested as an efficacious treatment for a subset of patients with treatment refractory obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Research Question: The goal of this study was to investigate neural correlates of GVC and investigate the predictive value of white matter tracts that are known to be associated with clinical outcome to Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS).

Material And Methods: MR images of 8 treatment-refractory OCD patients with a minimum follow-up of 3-years who underwent GVC were used to correlate lesion characteristics with symptom improvement.

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Objective: Anxiety is a prominent concern in Parkinson's disease (PD) that negatively impacts quality of life, increases functional disability, and complicates clinical management. Atypical presentations of anxiety are under-recognized and inadequately treated in patients with PD, compromising global PD care.

Methods: This systematic review focuses on the prevalence, symptomology and clinical correlates of atypical presentations of PD-related anxiety following PRISMA guidelines.

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Introduction: Although deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective for treating a number of neurological and psychiatric indications, surgical and hardware-related adverse events (AEs) can occur that affect quality of life. This study aimed to give an overview of the nature and frequency of those AEs in our center and to describe the way they were managed. Furthermore, an attempt was made at identifying possible risk factors for AEs to inform possible future preventive measures.

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Introduction: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Neuropsychological assessment contributes to DBS treatment in several ways: it monitors the cognitive safety of the treatment, identifies beneficial or detrimental cognitive side effects, and it could aid to explain variability in treatment outcome, and possibly the treatment's working mechanism(s).

Background: This systematic review assessed the cognitive safety of DBS for OCD and explored whether changes in cognitive function may help explain its working mechanism(s).

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Brain lesions are a rare cause of tic disorders. However, they can provide uniquely causal insights into tic pathophysiology and can also inform on possible neuromodulatory therapeutic targets. Based on a systematic literature review, we identified 22 cases of tics causally attributed to brain lesions and employed 'lesion network mapping' to interrogate whether tic-inducing lesions would be associated with a common network in the average human brain.

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Background: The "dual syndrome hypothesis" distinguished two subtypes in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Parkinson's disease: frontostriatal, characterized by attentional and executive deficits; and posterior cortical, characterized by visuospatial, memory, and language deficits.

Objective: The aim was to identify resting-state functional modifications associated with these subtypes.

Methods: Ninety-five nondemented patients categorized as having normal cognition (n = 31), frontostriatal (n = 14), posterior cortical (n = 20), or mixed (n = 30) cognitive subtype had a 3 T resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan.

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In 2011 the European Society for the Study of Tourette Syndrome (ESSTS) published its first European clinical guidelines for the treatment of Tourette Syndrome (TS) with part IV on deep brain stimulation (DBS). Here, we present a revised version of these guidelines with updated recommendations based on the current literature covering the last decade as well as a survey among ESSTS experts. Currently, data from the International Tourette DBS Registry and Database, two meta-analyses, and eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are available.

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Obsessive-compulsive disorder is among the most disabling psychiatric disorders. Although deep brain stimulation is considered an effective treatment, its use in clinical practice is not fully established. This is, at least in part, due to ambiguity about the best suited target and insufficient knowledge about underlying mechanisms.

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: Cognitive impairments are common in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and are heterogeneous in their presentation. The "dual syndrome hypothesis" suggests the existence of two distinct subtypes of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in PD: a frontostriatal subtype with predominant attentional and/or executive deficits and a posterior cortical subtype with predominant visuospatial, memory, and/or language deficits. The latter subtype has been associated with a higher risk of developing dementia.

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Objective: The journal received a request to retract a paper reporting the results of a triple-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. The present and immmediate past editors expand on the journal's decision not to retract this paper in spite of undisputable evidence of scientific misconduct on behalf of one of the investigators.

Methods: The editors present an ethical reflection on the request to retract this randomized clinical trial with consideration of relevant guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) applied to the unique contextual issues of this case.

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Background: In Parkinson's disease (PD), there is heterogeneity in the clinical presentation and underlying biology. Research on PD subtypes aims to understand this heterogeneity with potential contribution for the knowledge of disease pathophysiology, natural history and therapeutic development. There have been many studies of PD subtypes but their impact remains unclear with limited application in research or clinical practice.

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Background: Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent and disabling neuropsychiatric syndromes in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but no randomized controlled treatment trials of anxiety have been published to date.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in the treatment of anxiety in patients with PD.

Methods: Forty-eight patients with PD with anxiety were randomized 1:1 between CBT and clinical monitoring only (CMO).

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Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) targeting the globus pallidus internus (GPi) can improve tics and comorbid obsessive-compulsive behavior (OCB) in patients with treatment-refractory Tourette syndrome (TS). However, some patients' symptoms remain unresponsive, the stimulation applied across patients is variable, and the mechanisms underlying improvement are unclear. Identifying the fiber pathways surrounding the GPi that are associated with improvement could provide mechanistic insight and refine targeting strategies to improve outcomes.

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Background: The pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease include intraneuronal Lewy bodies, neuronal loss, and gliosis. We aim to correlate Parkinson's disease neuropsychiatric symptoms, (e.g.

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