Satisfaction with and reliability of in-hospital video-EEG monitoring systems in epilepsy diagnosis - A German multicenter experience.

Objective: To analyze satisfaction with and reliability of video-electroencephalography-monitoring systems (VEMS) in epilepsy diagnostics.

Methods: A survey was conducted between December 2020 and January 2021 among German epilepsy centers using well-established customer satisfaction (CS) and quality assurance metrics.

Results: Among 16 participating centers, CS with VEMS was low, with only 13% of customers actively recommending their system.

Quality of life, anxiety and depression in adult patients after add-on of levetiracetam and conversion to levetiracetam monotherapy.

The aim of this study was to investigate the change of health related quality of life (HRQoL), anxiety and depression in adult patients in whom an adjunctive treatment with levetiracetam (LEV) was converted to a LEV monotherapy. A prospective, open, investigator initiated multicenter study enrolled 140 patients in whom LEV was added to the existing antiepileptic medication. A total of 65 patients who benefited from the 16-week add-on treatment with LEV (≥50% seizure reduction) were converted to LEV monotherapy (16-week follow-up).

Circadian modulation of GABA-mediated cortical inhibition.

Circadian rhythms exert powerful influence on various aspects of human physiology and behavior. Here, we tested changes of human cerebral cortex excitability over the course of the day with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). At different times of the day, intracortical and corticospinal excitability of the primary motor cortex (M1) was evaluated in 15 healthy subjects by TMS of left M1.

H-coil: Induced electric field properties and input/output curves on healthy volunteers, comparison with a standard figure-of-eight coil.

Objective: To acquire information about the physical properties and physiological effects of the H-coil.

Methods: We used a robotized system to measure the electric field (E-field) generated by a H-coil prototype and compared it with a standard figure-of-eight coil. To explore the physiological properties of the coils, input/output curves were recorded for the right abductor digiti minimi muscle (ADM) as target muscle.

Limited impact of homeostatic plasticity on motor learning in humans.

Neuroplasticity is the adaptive modification of network connectivity in response to environmental demands and has been identified as a major physiological correlate of learning. Since unrestricted neuroplastic modifications of network connectivity will result in a de-stabilization of the system, metaplastic modification rules have been proposed for keeping plastic connectivity changes within a useful dynamic range. In this connection, the modification threshold to achieve synaptic strengthening is thought to correlate negatively with the history of activity of the respective neurons, i.