Through your eyes or mine? The neural correlates of mental state recognition in Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) can impair social cognition. This study investigated whether patients with HD exhibit neural differences to healthy controls when they are considering mental and physical states relating to the static expressions of human eyes. Thirty-two patients with HD and 28 age-matched controls were scanned with fMRI during two versions of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task: The standard version requiring mental state judgments, and a comparison version requiring judgments about age.

Transcranial direct current stimulation can enhance working memory in Huntington's disease.

Unlabelled: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with a cognitive task can enhance targeted aspects of cognitive functioning in clinical populations. The movement disorder Huntington's disease (HD) is associated with progressive cognitive impairment. Deficits in working memory (WM) can be apparent early in the disease and impact functional capacity.

Changes in mental state and behaviour in Huntington's disease.

Changes in mental state and behaviour have been acknowledged in Huntington's disease since the original monograph in 1872 provided evidence of disinhibition and impaired social cognition. Behavioural problems can manifest before obvious motor symptoms and are frequently the most disabling part of the illness. Although pharmacological treatments are used routinely for psychiatric difficulties in Huntington's disease, the scientific evidence base for their use is somewhat sparse.

Temporo-parietal dysfunction in Tourette syndrome: Insights from an fMRI study of Theory of Mind.

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by tics, repetitive movements and vocalizations which are prompted by a sensory-cognitive premonitory urge. Complex tics include environmentally dependent social behaviors such as echoing of other people's speech and actions. Recent studies have suggested that adults with TS can show differences to controls in Theory of Mind (ToM): reasoning about mental states (e.

Interaction without intent: the shape of the social world in Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative condition. Patients with this movement disorder can exhibit deficits on tasks involving Theory of Mind (ToM): the ability to understand mental states such as beliefs and emotions. We investigated mental state inference in HD in response to ambiguous animations involving geometric shapes, while exploring the impact of symptoms within cognitive, emotional and motor domains.

Theory of mind can be impaired prior to motor onset in Huntington's disease.

Objective: Patients with the inherited movement disorder Huntington's disease (HD) exhibit deficits in executive functions and theory of mind (ToM). We investigated these abilities in individuals with the HD gene who were yet to exhibit motor onset.

Method: Participants were HD gene carriers (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 26).

Cognitive deficits predict poorer functional capacity in Huntington's disease: but what is being measured?

Objective: Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited movement disorder characterized by choreiform movements and frontostriatal dysfunction. Previous studies have documented executive deficits in HD. We aimed to investigate the effect of cognitive deficits on patients' daily functioning.

Putting things into perspective: the nature and impact of theory of mind impairment in Huntington's disease.

In Huntington's disease (HD), frontostriatal dysfunction may lead to deficits in theory of mind (ToM), in addition to broader cognitive impairment. We investigated relationships between patients' spatial and social perspective taking performance and executive deficits, self-reported everyday perspective taking, motor symptoms, functional capacity and quality of life. Thirty patients with symptomatic HD and twenty-three healthy controls of similar age and education completed two ToM tasks, a scale assessing everyday interpersonal perspective taking, a novel object-based spatial perspective taking task (SPT) and executive measures.

Physiological Awareness Is Negatively Related to Inhibitory Functioning in Tourette Syndrome.

In Tourette syndrome (TS), tics are characteristically preceded by subjective bodily experiences referred to as premonitory sensations. Premonitory sensory phenomena play a key role in behavior therapy for tics, the success of which has also been suggested to be related to inhibitory functioning. We investigated whether TS was associated with altered internal physiological awareness and how this may interact with the neuropsychological characteristics of TS.

A controlled study of personality and affect in Tourette syndrome.

Objective: Tourette syndrome (TS) can increase the likelihood of social and emotional difficulties which may shape an individual's personality and self-perception. We investigated personality and affect in patients with TS.

Methods: Twenty-five adults with TS (2 with co-morbid obsessive compulsive disorder, 4 with co-morbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and 4 with both co-morbidities), who were not clinically depressed, and 25 matched controls participated in the study.

Executive functions in uncomplicated Tourette syndrome.

Previous studies reporting executive deficits in Tourette syndrome (TS) often failed to control for co-morbid conditions. We investigated executive functions in forty patients with TS without co-morbid psychiatric diagnoses (uncomplicated TS). Patients exhibited executive deficits which were unrelated to tic severity, suggesting executive dysfunction may be a core component of TS.

Behavioral adverse effects of antiepileptic drugs in epilepsy.

Patient tolerability is a significant limiting factor in the treatment of epilepsy and adverse effect profiles often determine drug retention rates. A full appreciation of the behavioral effects of a wide range of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is therefore essential to make informed treatment decisions. In this timely review, we highlight key alterations in mood, emotional experience, and other behavioral/psychiatric features, which can exert a crucial impact on patients' quality of life and well-being.

What patients with gilles de la tourette syndrome should be treated with deep brain stimulation and what is the best target?

Background: Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by tics and associated behavioral symptoms. Over the past decade, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been increasingly advocated as a reversible and controllable procedure for selected cases of GTS.

Objective: We set out to answer 2 clinically relevant questions: what patients with GTS should be treated with DBS and what is the best target?

Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review of the published studies of DBS in GTS and critically evaluated the current evidence for both patient and target selection.

The cognitive impact of antiepileptic drugs.

Effective treatment of epilepsy depends on medication compliance across a lifetime, and studies indicate that drug tolerability is a significant limiting factor in medication maintenance. Available antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) have the potential to exert detrimental effects on cognitive function and therefore compromise patient wellbeing. On the other hand, some agents may serve to enhance cognitive function.

Altered subjective fear responses in Huntington's disease.

Patients with Huntington's disease (HD) have been shown to exhibit impairment in the recognition of facial expressions such as disgust, as well as deficits in disgust responses to olfactory and gustatory stimuli. The present study investigated whether HD is associated with changes in emotional responses to a variety of visual and verbal stimuli selected to elicit core disgust, moral disgust, fear and happiness. Thirteen patients with HD and twelve controls provided emotional ratings after both reading emotion eliciting scenarios and viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System database.

Treatment strategies for tics in Tourette syndrome.

TOURETTE SYNDROME (TS) IS A CHRONIC NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER CHARACTERIZED BY TICS: repetitive, involuntary movements and vocalizations. These symptoms can have a significant impact on patients' daily functioning across many domains. Tics tend to be most severe in child and adolescent sufferers, so their presence has the potential to impact a period of life that is both critical for learning and is often associated with the experience of greater social tension and self-consciousness than adulthood.

Impaired comprehension of nonliteral language in Tourette syndrome.

Objective: To investigate theory of mind and the understanding of nonliteral language in patients with Tourette syndrome (TS).

Background: In TS, striatal dysfunction could affect the functioning of the frontal cortex. Changes in frontal functioning could lead to impairments in theory of mind: the understanding of mental states, such as beliefs, emotions, and intentions.

Altered Attribution of Intention in Tourette's Syndrome.

Core symptoms of Tourette's syndrome are assumed to result from inhibitory dysfunction, which could also impair theory of mind. Here the authors report evidence for theory of minddifficulties: patients exhibit deficits in recognizing faux pas and understanding intentionality.

Behavioral and cognitive effects of anti-epileptic drugs.

Anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) have a variety of mechanisms of action which are reflected through different anticonvulsant activities and behavioral effects. Two categories of AEDs are considered based on psychotropic profile. The first group is characterized by potentiation of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) inhibitory neurotransmission, and comprises of agents such as vigabatrin, tiagabine, and gabapentin.

Cognitive functioning in Tourette syndrome.

Tourette Syndrome (TS) is characterized by tics, which are thought to reflect striatal dysfunction. Changes in functioning of the striatum in TS could lead to dysfunction in frontostriatal pathways involving cortical regions such as the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex. This in turn could result in deficits in specific cognitive processes and impairment on particular cognitive tasks.

Cannabinoids for Tourette's Syndrome.

Background: Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (GTS) is a developmental neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by the presence of chronic motor and phonic tics. Drugs currently used in the treatment of GTS either lack efficacy or are associated with intolerable side effects. There is some anecdotal and experimental evidence that cannabinoids may be effective in treating tics and compulsive behaviour in patients with GTS.