Safety and efficacy of riluzole in spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 in France (ATRIL): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Riluzole has been reported to be beneficial in patients with cerebellar ataxia; however, effectiveness in individual subtypes of disease is unclear due to heterogeneity in participants' causes and stages of disease. Our aim was to test riluzole in a single genetic disease, spinocerebellar ataxia type 2.

Methods: We did a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial (the ATRIL study) at eight national reference centres for rare diseases in France that were part of the Neurogene National Reference Centre for Rare Diseases.

Exploring venlafaxine pharmacokinetic variability with a phenotyping approach, a multicentric french-swiss study (MARVEL study).

Background: It is well known that the standard doses of a given drug may not have equivalent effects in all patients. To date, the management of depression remains mainly empirical and often poorly evaluated. The development of a personalized medicine in psychiatry may reduce treatment failure, intolerance or resistance, and hence the burden and costs of mood depressive disorders.

Apelin administration improves insulin sensitivity in overweight men during hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp.

Aims: Apelin is a recently identified adipokine known to improve glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity in murine models. This study was dedicated to the proof of concept that apelin administration also enhances insulin sensitivity in humans.

Materials And Methods: Healthy overweight men were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study that successively considered the efficacy and the tolerance of 2 doses of (pyr1)-Apelin-13.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial evaluating cysteamine in Huntington's disease.

Background: Cysteamine has been demonstrated as potentially effective in numerous animal models of Huntington's disease.

Methods: Ninety-six patients with early-stage Huntington's disease were randomized to 1200 mg delayed-release cysteamine bitartrate or placebo daily for 18 months. The primary end point was the change from baseline in the UHDRS Total Motor Score.

Apomorphine effect on pain threshold in Parkinson's disease: a clinical and positron emission tomography study.

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) frequently experience pain that could be in part due to central modification of nociception. In this randomized controlled double blind study, we compared the effect of apomorphine versus placebo on pain thresholds and pain-induced cerebral activity in 25 patients with PD. Subjective pain threshold (using thermal stimulation, thermotest), objective pain threshold (nociceptive flexion reflex), and cerebral activity (H(2)(15)O PET) during noxious and innocuous stimulations were performed.

Neural substrates of low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation during movement in healthy subjects and acute stroke patients. A PET study.

The aim of the study was to investigate, with an rTMS/PET protocol, the after-effects induced by 1-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to that stimulated during a movement. Eighteen healthy subjects underwent a baseline PET scan followed, in randomized order, by a session of Real/Sham low-frequency (1 Hz) subthreshold rTMS over the right M1 for 23 min. The site of stimulation was fMRI-guided.