Publications by authors named "Masa-Aki Higuchi"

Objectives: Deep brain stimulation is widely used to treat movement disorders and selected neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite the fact, the surgical methods vary among centers. In this study, we aimed to evaluate our own surgical complications and how we performed surgical troubleshooting.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Essential tremor (ET) is a common movement disorder characterized by kinetic and postural tremor in the upper extremities and frequently in the midline. Persons with ET often also exhibit gait ataxia. Previous studies have observed associations between midline tremor severity and gait ataxia in persons with ET, suggesting a common pathophysiology distinct from that of upper extremity tremor.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventral intermediate (Vim) thalamic nucleus is used to treat tremors. Here, we identified the Vim nucleus on fast gray matter acquisition T1 inversion recovery (FGATIR) images and delineated the dentate-rubrothalamic tract (DRT) to determine the DBS target. We evaluated whether this method could consistently identify the Vim nucleus by anatomical imaging and fiber tractography.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Eye opening apraxia (EOA) has been described in literature as a complication of deep brain stimulation (DBS), especially after electrode implantation in the subthalamic nucleus (STN). EOA can be either worsened or alleviated by DBS depending on the etiology. Herein, we report a rare case where the progression of brain atrophy may have contributed to the delayed onset of EOA.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

It remains unclear how deep brain stimulation (DBS) modulates the global neuronal network involving cortical activity. We aimed to evaluate changes in cortical activity in six (two men; four women) patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) who underwent unilateral globus pallidus interna (GPI) DBS surgery using a multi-channel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system. As five of the patients were right-handed, DBS was performed on the left in these five cases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To investigate the impact of pre-operative deep brain stimulation (DBS) interdisciplinary assessments on post-operative hospitalizations and quality of life (QoL).

Background: DBS has been utilized successfully in Parkinson's disease (PD) for the treatment of tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, off time, and motor fluctuations. Although DBS is becoming a more common management approach there are no standardized criteria for selection of DBS candidates, and sparse data exist to guide the use of interdisciplinary evaluations for DBS screening.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. As the severity of disease worsens, patients have lower tolerance for treatments and occasionally need to be hospitalized. This study focuses on characteristics of patients with PD who were emergently admitted to our hospital and evaluates their prognosis during hospitalization.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To investigate the relationship of our interdisciplinary screening process on post-operative unintended hospitalizations and quality of life.

Background: There are currently no standardized criteria for selection of appropriate Deep Brain Stimulation candidates and little hard data exists to support the use of any singular method.

Methods: An Essential Tremor cohort was selected from our institutional Deep Brain Stimulation database.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Aspiration pneumonia is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in Parkinson's disease (PD). Clinical characteristics of PD patients in addition to specific alterations in swallowing mechanisms contribute to higher swallowing times and impairment in the effective clearance of the airway. These issues may render patients more prone to dysphagia and aspiration events.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is usually triggered by viral or bacterial infection. In addition, it was recently reported that infection with hepatitis E virus (HEV) also causes GBS. A 49-year-old man presented with acute-onset paralysis in all extremities and dysgeusia during an episode of acute hepatitis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Purpose: The 9-item Wearing-off Questionnaire (WOQ-9) is a useful tool for screening of wearing-off. We performed a validation study of the Japanese version of the WOQ-9 (JWOQ-9) using a cross-sectional design in Japanese Parkinson's disease (PD) patients diagnosed with sporadic PD and treated with levodopa.

Methods: Subjects with severe dementia, uncontrolled psychiatric comorbidities, and previous PD neurosurgery were excluded.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We herein report a 32-year-old woman with adult-onset reducing body myopathy (RBM) who had a mutation in the four-and-a-half LIM domain 1 gene (FHL1) and showed a marked asymmetrical involvement of sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. At 30 years of age she noticed bilateral foot drop, and over the next two years developed difficulty raising her right arm. At 32 years of age she was admitted to our hospital for a diagnostic evaluation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a widespread, severe, debilitating disorder that markedly diminishes quality of life. Medication is commonly effective, but 20-30 % of patients are refractory to medical therapy. The surgical treatment of psychiatric disorders has a negative stigma associated with it owing to historical abuses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is a valid therapeutic tool that ameliorates motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, apathy is one of the neuropsychiatric complications that may occur after STN-DBS surgery, and this may adversely influence the quality of life of patients despite significant motor improvement.

Objective: This study aimed to elucidate preoperative predictive factors for the presence of postoperative apathy in patients treated with STN-DBS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report a case of primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) that presented with visual disturbance. A 76-year-old man developed decreased bilateral visual acuity. He was diagnosed with bilateral retrobulbar neuritis by an ophthalmologist.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how the anti-cholinergic medication trihexyphenidyl affects axial symptoms in Parkinson's disease patients who have undergone deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS).
  • Researchers examined 20 patients, measuring symptom changes one month after starting trihexyphenidyl, using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS).
  • Results showed significant deterioration in axial symptoms after the surgery, but trihexyphenidyl treatment led to notable improvements in symptoms, suggesting it may help manage complications associated with STN-DBS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report a case of malignant catatonia initially diagnosed as neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) that responded successfully to diazepam administration. A 29-year-old man with mental retardation was admitted to our hospital because of high fever, muscle pain, and consciousness disturbance. Fifteen days before admission, he had developed muscle pain and weakness in his legs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Apolipoprotein E epsilon4 is an independent risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and is the main constituent of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) as a source of cholesterol in the brain. ATP-binding cassette transporter G4 (ABCG4) is one of the membrane cholesterol transporter which is implicated in HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux, but its precise localization and function in the brain has been unclear. In AD brain, ABCG4 protein was highly expressed in microglial cell that was closely located to senile plaques, whereas in non-neurological cases positive cells were not seen in cortical and nigral tissues.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tangier disease (TD) is a rare familial disorder with mutations in the ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) gene. It results in extremely low levels of HDL cholesterol. Since TD is a genetic disorder, a therapeutic approach to TD has not been established.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF