Ventricular enlargement and mild cognitive impairment in early Parkinson's disease.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may predict future development of dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to examine the extent of subcortical brain atrophy in patients with early PD with and without MCI compared to normal controls (NC). Participating in a population-based study were 43 early, drug-naïve PD patients and 41 NC.

The rs2030324 SNP of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is associated with visual cognitive processing in multiple sclerosis.

Purpose: To investigate the associations between the rs2030324 SNP of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neuropsychological (NP) test measures in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

Background: BDNF regulates the survival of neuronal and non-neuronal cells and plays a critical role in neurochemical processes underlying learning and memory.

Methods: A total of 209 MS patients (161 females; 48 males) underwent brain MRI and genotyping for BDNF rs2030324.

Extent of cerebellum, subcortical and cortical atrophy in patients with MS: a case-control study.

Cortical and subcortical atrophy occurs in multiple sclerosis (MS) and relates to clinical outcomes. FreeSurfer, a voxel-based automated software for brain reconstruction was used to investigate the extent of subcortical and cortical atrophy in 71 MS and 17 clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) patients, and 38 normal controls (NC), and to relate group differences to disease type and severity. Segmentation was performed on 3D SPGR T1-weighted MRI 1.