Headache in epilepsy: prevalence and clinical features.

Background: Headache and epilepsy are two relatively common neurological disorders and their relationship is still a matter of debate. Our aim was to estimate the prevalence and clinical features of inter-ictal (inter-IH) and peri-ictal headache (peri-IH) in patients with epilepsy.

Methods: All patients aged ≥ 17 years referring to our tertiary Epilepsy Centre were consecutively recruited from March to May 2011 and from March to July 2012.

Definition of the neurological phenotype associated with dup (X)(p11.22-p11.23).

The aim of this study was to describe in detail the neurological features of nine patients carrying the recently reported microduplication at Xp11.22-11.23.

Unexpected gamma glutamyltransferase rise increase during levetiracetam monotherapy.

Levetiracetam is an antiepileptic drug (AED) with a favourable tolerability profile with little or no effect on liver function. We describe an epileptic patient who developed a significant increase in gamma glutamyltransferase (gammaGT) while on levetiracetam monotherapy.

Primitive reflex evaluation in the clinical assessment of extrapyramidal syndromes.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the role of primitive reflexes (PRs) as additional alert sign in routine clinical practice in patients with extrapyramidal syndrome. We considered glabellar, snout, palmomental and grasp reflexes in patients with mild stage of Lewy body dementia (LBD), corticobasal degeneration, progressive supranuclear palsy or Parkinson disease (PD). We also enrolled mild Alzheimer disease (AD) patients, and healthy subjects, as controls.

Diffusion tensor imaging and voxel based morphometry study in early progressive supranuclear palsy.

Background: A comprehensive characterisation of grey and white matter changes in progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the second most common extrapyramidal syndrome after Parkinson disease, is still not available.

Objective: To evaluate grey and white matter changes in mild PSP patients by voxel based morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), respectively.

Methods: 14 mild PSP patients and 14 healthy controls entered the study and underwent a clinical and neuropsychological evaluation according with a standardised assessment.

Pre-clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer disease combining platelet amyloid precursor protein ratio and rCBF spect analysis.

Platelet Amyloid Precursor Protein ratio of different abnormal forms and 99mTc-ECD SPECT perfusion analysis were evaluated in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) subjects who progressed to Alzheimer Disease (AD) and in stable MCI. We report that their combined evaluation increases the discriminative power of the analysis in identifying presymptomatic AD. The positive predictive value of these combined markers in identifying progressive MCI was 0.

Volume cerebral blood flow reduction in pre-clinical stage of Alzheimer disease: evidence from an ultrasonographic study.

The association of decreased cerebral blood flow with the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been a recent target of interest. By using neuroimaging techniques, growing attention has been devoted to the identification of preclinical AD. In this study, color duplex sonography of cervical arteries was used to measure mean cerebral blood flow (CBF) on 55 amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) patients.