Acute polyneuropathy: a serious complication of levodopa/ /carbidopa intestinal gel treatment for Parkinson's Disease.

Aim Of Study: To determine whether a high dose of levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG), expressed as levodopa equivalent daily dose (LE daily dose), is a risk factor for acute polyneuropathy in patients treated with LCIG.

Clinical Rationale For Study: Treatment with LCIG is an effective device-assisted therapy in the advanced stages of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Polyneuropathy is a well-known complication of PD treatment.

Early Changes in the Locus Coeruleus in Mild Cognitive Impairment with Lewy Bodies.

Background: Although neuromelanin-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging (NM-MRI) has been used to evaluate early neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, studies concentrating on the locus coeruleus (LC) in pre-dementia stages of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are lacking.

Objectives: The aims were to evaluate NM-MRI signal changes in the LC in patients with mild cognitive impairment with Lewy bodies (MCI-LB) compared to healthy controls (HC) and to identify the cognitive correlates of the changes. We also aimed to test the hypothesis of a caudal-rostral α-synuclein pathology spread using NM-MRI of the different LC subparts.

Brain health and national neurological societies: Results of the European Academy of Neurology survey on brain health awareness and areas of implementation for European countries.

Background And Purpose: The European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has adhered to the global plan for reducing the burden of neurological disorders and promoting brain health launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the WHO Intersectoral Global Action Plan on Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders. This study reports the results of an EAN survey among national neurological societies (NNSs) on their awareness of brain health policies.

Methods: The EAN survey on the current state of national brain health policies was conducted among the 47 presidents of the NNSs affiliated with the EAN, with the aim of developing the best strategy for close collaboration among stakeholders.

Physiology-inspired bifocal fronto-parietal tACS for working memory enhancement.

Aging populations face significant cognitive challenges, particularly in working memory (WM). Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) offer promising avenues for cognitive enhancement, especially when inspired by brain physiology. This study (NCT04986787) explores the effect of multifocal tACS on WM performance in healthy older adults, focusing on fronto-parietal network modulation.

Short-term effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on motor speech in Parkinson's disease: a pilot study.

Introduction: Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a common motor speech symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) which does not respond well to PD treatments. We investigated short-term effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on HD in PD using acoustic analysis of speech. Based on our previous studies we focused on stimulation of the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) - an auditory feedback area.

Striato-cortical functional connectivity changes in mild cognitive impairment with Lewy bodies.

Background: Functional connectivity changes in clinically overt neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia with Lewy bodies have been described, but studies on connectivity changes in the pre-dementia phase are scarce.

Objectives: We concentrated on evaluating striato-cortical functional connectivity differences between patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment with Lewy bodies and healthy controls and on assessing the relation to cognition.

Methods: Altogether, we enrolled 77 participants (47 patients, of which 35 met all the inclusion criteria for the final analysis, and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls, of which 28 met all the inclusion criteria for the final analysis) to study the seed-based connectivity of the dorsal, middle, and ventral striatum.

Imaging Biomarkers in Prodromal and Earliest Phases of Parkinson's Disease.

Assessing imaging biomarker in the prodromal and early phases of Parkinson's disease (PD) is of great importance to ensure an early and safe diagnosis. In the last decades, imaging modalities advanced and are now able to assess many different aspects of neurodegeneration in PD. MRI sequences can measure iron content or neuromelanin.

Sex differences in brain atrophy in dementia with Lewy bodies.

Introduction: Sex influences neurodegeneration, but it has been poorly investigated in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We investigated sex differences in brain atrophy in DLB using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods: We included 436 patients from the European-DLB consortium and the Mayo Clinic.

A strategic neurological research agenda for Europe: Towards clinically relevant and patient-centred neurological research priorities.

Background And Purpose: Neurological disorders constitute a significant portion of the global disease burden, affecting >30% of the world's population. This prevalence poses a substantial threat to global health in the foreseeable future. A lack of awareness regarding this high burden of neurological diseases has led to their underrecognition, underappreciation, and insufficient funding.

Levodopa may modulate specific speech impairment in Parkinson's disease: an fMRI study.

Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a difficult-to-treat symptom affecting quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Levodopa may partially alleviate some symptoms of HD in PD, but the neural correlates of these effects are not fully understood. The aim of our study was to identify neural mechanisms by which levodopa affects articulation and prosody in patients with PD.

Different pieces of the same puzzle: a multifaceted perspective on the complex biological basis of Parkinson's disease.

The biological basis of the neurodegenerative movement disorder, Parkinson's disease (PD), is still unclear despite it being 'discovered' over 200 years ago in Western Medicine. Based on current PD knowledge, there are widely varying theories as to its pathobiology. The aim of this article was to explore some of these different theories by summarizing the viewpoints of laboratory and clinician scientists in the PD field, on the biological basis of the disease.

A Pilot Study on the Functional Stability of Phonation in EEG Bands After Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition with constantly increasing prevalence rates, affecting strongly life quality in terms of neuromotor and cognitive performance. PD symptoms include voice and speech alterations, known as hypokinetic dysarthria (HD). Unstable phonation is one of the manifestations of HD.

Language impairment in Parkinson's disease: fMRI study of sentence reading comprehension.

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects the language processes, with a significant impact on the patients' daily communication. We aimed to describe specific alterations in the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences in patients with PD (PwPD) as compared to healthy controls (HC) and to identify the neural underpinnings of these deficits using a functional connectivity analysis of the striatum. A total of 20 patients PwPD and 15 HC participated in the fMRI study.

Functional neuroanatomy of reading in Czech: Evidence of a dual-route processing architecture in a shallow orthography.

Introduction: According to the strong version of the orthographic depth hypothesis, in languages with transparent letter-sound mappings (shallow orthographies) the reading of both familiar words and unfamiliar nonwords may be accomplished by a sublexical pathway that relies on serial grapheme-to-phoneme conversion. However, in languages such as English characterized by inconsistent letter-sound relationships (deep orthographies), word reading is mediated by a lexical-semantic pathway that relies on mappings between word-specific orthographic, semantic, and phonological representations, whereas the sublexical pathway is used primarily to read nonwords.

Methods: In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to elucidate neural substrates of reading in Czech, a language characterized by a shallo worthography.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for hypokinetic dysarthria in Parkinson's disease enhances white matter integrity of the auditory-motor loop.

Background And Purpose: In our previous study, repeated sessions of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the auditory feedback area were shown to improve hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) in Parkinson's disease (PD) and led to changes in functional connectivity within the left-sided articulatory networks. We analyzed data from this previous study and assessed the effects of rTMS for HD in PD on the diffusion parameters of the left anterior arcuate fasciculus (AAF), which connects the auditory feedback area with motor regions involved in articulation.

Methods: Patients were assigned to 10 sessions of real or sham 1-Hz stimulation over the right posterior superior temporal gyrus.

Inter-individual differences in baseline dynamic functional connectivity are linked to cognitive aftereffects of tDCS.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has the potential to modulate cognitive training in healthy aging; however, results from various studies have been inconsistent. We hypothesized that inter-individual differences in baseline brain state may contribute to the varied results. We aimed to explore whether baseline resting-state dynamic functional connectivity (rs-dFC) and/or conventional resting-state static functional connectivity (rs-sFC) may be related to the magnitude of cognitive aftereffects of tDCS.

Is non-invasive brain stimulation effective for cognitive enhancement in Alzheimer's disease? An updated meta-analysis.

Objective: Alzheimer's disease dementia (AD) and its preclinical stage, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), are critical issues confronting the aging society. Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques have the potential to be effective tools for enhancing cognitive functioning. The main objective of our meta-analysis was to quantify and update the status of the efficacy of repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) when applied in AD and MCI.

Cathepsin B p.Gly284Val Variant in Parkinson's Disease Pathogenesis.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is generally considered a sporadic disorder, but a strong genetic background is often found. The aim of this study was to identify the underlying genetic cause of PD in two affected siblings and to subsequently assess the role of mutations in Cathepsin B in susceptibility to PD. A typical PD family was identified and whole-exome sequencing was performed in two affected siblings.

Comparison of CNN-Learned vs. Handcrafted Features for Detection of Parkinson's Disease Dysgraphia in a Multilingual Dataset.

Parkinson's disease dysgraphia (PDYS), one of the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease (PD), has been researched as a promising biomarker of PD and as the target of a noninvasive and inexpensive approach to monitoring the progress of the disease. However, although several approaches to supportive PDYS diagnosis have been proposed (mainly based on handcrafted features (HF) extracted from online handwriting or the utilization of deep neural networks), it remains unclear which approach provides the highest discrimination power and how these approaches can be transferred between different datasets and languages. This study aims to compare classification performance based on two types of features: features automatically extracted by a pretrained convolutional neural network (CNN) and HF designed by human experts.

Neuroplasticity in Motor Learning Under Variable and Constant Practice Conditions-Protocol of Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: There is numerous literature on mechanisms underlying variability of practice advantages. Literature includes both behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Unfortunately, no studies are focusing on practice in constant conditions to the best of our knowledge.