Effects of exergaming on hippocampal volume and brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in Parkinson's disease.

Background And Objective: Cognitive impairment is among the most burdensome non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) and has been associated with hippocampal atrophy. Exercise has been reported to enhance neuroplasticity in the hippocampus in correlation with an improvement of cognitive function. We present data from the Training-PD study, which was designed to evaluate effects of an "" training protocol on neuronal plasticity in PD.

Increased functional connectivity in a population at risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

Background: While the concept of prodromal Parkinson's disease (PD) is well established, reliable markers for the diagnosis of this disease stage are still lacking. We investigated the functional connectivity of the putamina in a resting-state functional MRI analysis in persons with at least two prodromal factors for PD, which is considered a high risk for PD (HRPD) group, in comparison to PD patients and controls.

Methods: We included 16 PD patients, 20 healthy controls and 20 HRPD subjects.

Dynamic B shimming of the motor cortex and cerebellum with a multicoil shim setup for BOLD fMRI at 9.4T.

Purpose: We assessed how improved static magnetic field (B ) homogeneity with a dynamic multicoil shimming can influence the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast to noise when echo planar imaging (EPI) sequence is used for a motor task functional MRI study. We showed that a multicoil shim setup can be a proper choice for dynamic shimming of 2 spatially distant areas with different inhomogeneity distributions.

Methods: A 16-channel multicoil shim setup is used to provide improved B homogeneity by dynamic slice-wise shimming.

Effects of Exergaming on Attentional Deficits and Dual-Tasking in Parkinson's Disease.

Impairment of dual-tasking, as an attention-based primary cognitive dysfunction, is frequently observed in Parkinson's Disease (PD). The Training-PD study investigated the efficiency of exergaming, as a novel cognitive-motor training approach, to improve attention-based deficits and dual-tasking in PD when compared to healthy controls. Eighteen PD patients and 17 matched healthy controls received a 6-week home-based training period of exergaming.

Motor and language deficits correlate with resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging networks in patients with brain tumors.

Background And Purpose: Evidence of pre-operative resting state functional magnetic resonance (RS-fMRI) validation by correlating it with clinical pre-operative status in brain tumor patients is scarce. Our aim was to validate the functional relevance of RS-fMRI by investigating the association between RS-fMRI and pre-operative motor and language function performance in patients with brain tumor.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-nine patients with brain tumors were prospectively recruited.