Cognitive outcomes following vagus nerve stimulation, responsive neurostimulation and deep brain stimulation for epilepsy: A systematic review.

Background: The cognitive impacts of resective surgery for epilepsy have been well-studied. While seizure outcomes for less invasive, neuromodulatory treatments are promising, there is a paucity of data for cognitive outcomes.

Methods: Medline, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched on November 2019.

Repetitive Behaviors in Frontotemporal Dementia: Compulsions or Impulsions?

Objective: The presence of repetitive behaviors is one of the core criteria for behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Patients with bvFTD often have perseverative, stereotyped, or compulsive-ritualistic behavior as an early aspect of their disorder. It is unclear whether such behaviors are related to compulsions, as in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or are part of the impulse disorder spectrum.

Screening for Emotional Expression in Frontotemporal Dementia: A Pilot Study.

Objective: Although emotional blunting is a core feature of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), there are no practical clinical measures of emotional expression for the early diagnosis of bvFTD.

Method: Three age-matched groups (bvFTD, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and healthy controls (HC)) of eight participants each were presented with real-life vignettes varying in emotional intensity (high versus low) with either negative or positive outcomes. This study evaluated verbal (self-reports of distress) and visual (presence or absence of facial affect) measures of emotional expression during the vignettes.

Skin Conduction Levels Differentiate Frontotemporal Dementia From Alzheimer's Disease.

Patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) differ in basic emotional tone. Skin conduction levels (SCLs), a measure of sympathetic tone, may be a sensitive test for discriminating these two dementias early in their course. Previous research has shown differences in resting SCLs between patients with bvFTD and AD, but no study has evaluated the discriminability of SCLs during different environmental conditions.