Clinical validation of a combinatorial PharmAcogeNomic approach in major Depressive disorder: an Observational prospective RAndomized, participant and rater-blinded, controlled trial (PANDORA trial).

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common, chronic, debilitating mood disorder that causes serious functional impairment and significantly decreased quality of life. Pharmacotherapy represents the first-line treatment option; however, only approximately one third of patients respond to the first treatment because of the ineffectiveness or side effects of antidepressants. Precision medicine in psychiatry might offer clinicians the possibility to tailor treatment according to the best possible evidence of efficacy and tolerability for each subject.

Transcranial direct current stimulation combined with cognitive training for the treatment of Parkinson Disease: A randomized, placebo-controlled study.

Background: A number of non-motor symptoms occurs in Parkinson Disease (PD), cognitive decline and mood disturbances representing the most prevalent. Recent studies reported that cognitive training could potentially help to attenuate cognitive deficits in patients with PD and several researches demonstrated a beneficial effect of active transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (anode over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cathode over right supraorbital area) on cognitive deficits and mood disturbances.

Objective: To investigate the effects of active tDCS combined with computerized cognitive training on cognition and mood disturbances in PD patients.

Strengthening of Existing Episodic Memories Through Non-invasive Stimulation of Prefrontal Cortex in Older Adults with Subjective Memory Complaints.

Episodic memory is critical to daily life functioning. This type of declarative memory declines with age and is the earliest cognitive function to be compromised in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Subjective memory complaints are commonly reported by older adults and have been considered a risk factor for developing AD.

Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis of the Default Mode and Salience Network for Target Identification in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation of Alzheimer's Disease and Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia Networks.

Background: The accurate choice of the site of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is an important factor in trial design.

Objective: Based on the observation that Alzheimer's disease (AD) and behavioral frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) affect specific large-scale networks, i.e.

Facial feedback and autonomic responsiveness reflect impaired emotional processing in Parkinson's Disease.

Emotional deficits are part of the non-motor features of Parkinson's disease but few attention has been paid to specific aspects such as subjective emotional experience and autonomic responses. This study aimed to investigate the mechanisms of emotional recognition in Parkinson's Disease (PD) using the following levels: explicit evaluation of emotions (Self-Assessment Manikin) and implicit reactivity (Skin Conductance Response; electromyographic measure of facial feedback of the zygomaticus and corrugator muscles). 20 PD Patients and 34 healthy controls were required to observe and evaluate affective pictures during physiological parameters recording.

Older adults get episodic memory boosting from noninvasive stimulation of prefrontal cortex during learning.

Episodic memory displays the largest degree of age-related decline, a process that is accelerated in pathological conditions such as amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Previous studies have shown that the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes to the encoding of episodic memories along the life span. The aim of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was to test the hypothesis that anodal trascranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left lateral PFC during the learning phase would enhance delayed recall of verbal episodic memories in elderly individuals.

Mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease is improved by transcranial direct current stimulation combined with physical therapy.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by both motor and cognitive deficits. In PD, physical exercise has been found to improve physical functioning. Recent studies demonstrated that repeated sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation led to an increased performance in cognitive and motor tasks in patients with PD.

Motivational mechanisms (BAS) and prefrontal cortical activation contribute to recognition memory for emotional words. rTMS effect on performance and EEG (alpha band) measures.

The present research addressed the question of where memories for emotional words could be represented in the brain. A second main question was related to the effect of personality traits, in terms of the Behavior Activation System (BAS), in emotional word recognition. We tested the role of the left DLPFC (LDLPFC) by performing a memory task in which old (previously encoded targets) and new (previously not encoded distractors) positive or negative emotional words had to be recognized.