Unilateral extradural motor cortex stimulation is safe and improves Parkinson disease at 1 year.

Background: The primary motor cortex, which is part of the corticobasal ganglia loops, may be an alternative option for the surgical treatment of Parkinson disease.

Objective: To report on the 1-year safety and efficacy of unilateral extradural motor cortex stimulation in Parkinson disease.

Methods: A quadripolar electrode strip was extradurally implanted over the motor cortex.

Chronic motor cortex stimulation in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and effects on striatal dopaminergic transmission as assessed by 123I-FP-CIT SPECT: a preliminary report.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess striatal dopamine transporter availability in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) before and after 13 months of unilateral extradural motor cortex stimulation (EMCS) with [123I]N-ω-fluoropropyl-2-β-carbo-methoxy-3-β-(4-iodophenyl)nortropane single photon emission computed tomography (123I-FP-CIT SPECT).

Methods: Six PD patients (five women and one man, aged 63.2 ± 5.

Effects of stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus on naming and reading nouns and verbs in Parkinson's disease.

Unlabelled: An impairment for verbs has been described in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), suggesting that a disruption of frontal-subcortical circuits may result in dysfunction of the neural systems involved in action-verb processing. A previous study suggested that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) during verb generation may affect the ability to select from many competing lexical alternatives. In this study, 12 PD patients who had undergone bilateral STN DBS and completed an 8-year follow-up and 14 matched normal controls were administered action and object naming tasks and verb and noun reading tasks.

The long-term effect of tetrabenazine in the management of Huntington disease.

Objectives: To enhance the knowledge on the long-term efficacy and safety of tetrabenazine (TBZ) in managing chorea.

Methods: We analyzed 68 Huntington disease patients (mean disease duration, 55.8 +/- 34.

GPi-DBS in Huntington's disease: results on motor function and cognition in a 72-year-old case.

Huntington's disease (HD) produces debilitating motor abnormalities that are poorly responsive to medical therapy. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the posteroventral globus pallidus internus (GPi) may offer a treatment option for patients with diskinetic phenotype and minimal cognitive impairment, but its role in the management of HD remains unclear and to date only two cases have been reported. We report the outcome of GPi-DBS in a 72-year-old man with HD.

PINK1 heterozygous rare variants: prevalence, significance and phenotypic spectrum.

Heterozygous rare variants in the PINK1 gene, as well as in other genes causing autosomal recessive parkinsonism, have been reported both in patients and healthy controls. Their pathogenic significance is uncertain, but they have been suggested to represent risk factors to develop Parkinson disease (PD). The few large studies that assessed the frequency of PINK1 heterozygotes in cases and controls yielded controversial results, and the phenotypic spectrum is largely unknown.

Punding and computer addiction in Parkinson's disease.

Punding is a stereotypical behavior in which there is an intense fascination with repetitive handling and examining of mechanical objects, such as taking apart watches and radios or arranging common objects (lining up pebbles, rocks, or other small objects). This disabling condition, different from both obsessive-compulsive disorder and mania, is probably underreported. Punding is thought to be related to dopaminergic stimulation, although only a few observations of this condition in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) under therapy has been reported.

Frequency and phenotypes of LRRK2 G2019S mutation in Italian patients with Parkinson's disease.

To evaluate the frequency of the LRRK2 G2019S mutation in Italy, we tested 1,072 probands with Parkinson's disease (PD; 822 sporadic and 250 familial): 20 patients (1.9%) carried the G2019S mutation, 11 patients (1.3%) were sporadic, and 9 (4.