Dopamine replacement therapy and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nuclei induce modulation of emotional processes at different spatial frequencies in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nuclei (STN-DBS) is an effective treatment for the most severe forms of Parkinson's disease (PD) and is intended to suppress these patients' motor symptoms. However, be it in association with Dopamine Replacement Therapy (DRT) or not, STN-DBS may in some cases induce addictive or emotional disorders.

Objective: In the current study, we suggest that PD patients suffer from emotional deficits that have not been revealed in previous studies because in those experiments the stimuli were displayed for a time long enough to allow patients to have recourse to perceptual strategies in order to recognize the emotional facial expressions (EFE).

Rapid Presentation of Emotional Expressions Reveals New Emotional Impairments in Tourette's Syndrome.

Objective: Based on a variety of empirical evidence obtained within the theoretical framework of embodiment theory, we considered it likely that motor disorders in Tourette's syndrome (TS) would have emotional consequences for TS patients. However, previous research using emotional facial categorization tasks suggests that these consequences are limited to TS patients with obsessive-compulsive behaviors (OCB).

Method: These studies used long stimulus presentations which allowed the participants to categorize the different emotional facial expressions (EFEs) on the basis of a perceptual analysis that might potentially hide a lack of emotional feeling for certain emotions.

[Phototherapeutic keratectomy in the treatment of lattice corneal dystrophy type I].

Purpose: Lattice corneal dystrophy type I is an autosomal dominant corneal dystrophy caused by allelic mutations of the BIGH3 gene. Type I dystrophy is recognized clinically by the characteristic net of linear opacities within the corneal stroma that results from an accumulation of amyloid. This study was designed to evaluate the therapeutic potential of phototherapeutic keratectomy (PTK) for the treatment of lattice corneal dystrophy type I.

Measurement of basal tear turnover using a standardized protocol. European concerted action on ocular fluorometry.

Background: The aim of this study was to compare basal tear turnover values of healthy volunteers in different countries.

Methods: Healthy volunteers aged between 20 and 70 years were selected in three European cities. Basal tear turnover values were calculated according to a standardized protocol from the decay of the fluorescein concentration in tears after instillation of 1-microliters drop of fluorescein in the conjunctival sac.