Utility of Quantitative EEG in Neurological Emergencies and ICU Clinical Practice.

The electroencephalogram (EEG) is a cornerstone tool for the diagnosis, management, and prognosis of selected patient populations. EEGs offer significant advantages such as high temporal resolution, real-time cortical function assessment, and bedside usability. The quantitative EEG (qEEG) added the possibility of long recordings being processed in a compressive manner, making EEG revision more efficient for experienced users, and more friendly for new ones.

Impact of Impulsivity and Therapy Response in Eating Disorders from a Neurophysiological, Personality and Cognitive Perspective.

Impulsivity, as a multidimensional construct, has been linked to eating disorders (EDs) and may negatively impact treatment response. The study aimed to identify the dimensions of impulsivity predicting poor remission of ED symptoms. A total of 37 ED patients underwent a baseline assessment of impulsive personality traits and inhibitory control, including the Stroop task and the emotional go/no-go task with event-related potentials (ERPs) analysis.

Neurological toxicity due to antimonial treatment for refractory visceral leishmaniasis.

Introduction: Although pentavalent antimonials are no longer considered the first-line therapy for visceral leishmaniasis in the developed world, they are still used in certain geographical areas and in refractory cases. These drugs have a great number of adverse effects; however, neurological toxicity has been rarely reported.

Case Report: We present a 56-year-old woman who required long-term treatment with antimonial drugs due to refractory visceral leishmaniasis and presented clinically with tremor of extremities, myoclonus, gait disturbances and epileptic seizures.

The neural correlates of delay discounting in obesity and binge eating disorder.

Background And Aims: Increased delay discounting is associated with obesity and binge eating disorder (BED). Although BED and obesity frequently co-occur, the neural mechanisms underlying delay discounting in these conditions remain poorly understood.

Methods: Thirtyfive women with obesity, including 10 participants with obesity and BED and 31 controls completed a monetary delay discounting task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and amygdala function during cognitive reappraisal predicts weight restoration and emotion regulation impairment in anorexia nervosa.

Background: Although deficits in affective processing are a core component of anorexia nervosa (AN), we lack a detailed characterization of the neurobiological underpinnings of emotion regulation impairment in AN. Moreover, it remains unclear whether these neural correlates scale with clinical outcomes.

Methods: We investigated the neural correlates of negative emotion regulation in a sample of young women receiving day-hospital treatment for AN (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 21).

Clinical and Neurophysiological Correlates of Emotion and Food Craving Regulation in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa.

Background: Difficulties in emotion regulation and craving regulation have been linked to eating symptomatology in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), contributing to the maintenance of their eating disorder.

Methods: To investigate clinical and electrophysiological correlates of these processes, 20 patients with AN and 20 healthy controls (HC) completed a computerized task during EEG recording, where they were instructed to down-regulate negative emotions or food craving. Participants also completed self-report measures of emotional regulation and food addiction.

Emotional and non-emotional facets of impulsivity in eating disorders: From anorexia nervosa to bulimic spectrum disorders.

Objective: Impulsivity and difficulties in regulating emotions are considered to be transdiagnostic characteristics of patients with eating disorders (EDs). The study aimed to investigate trait impulsivity and inhibitory components of impulsivity, related or unrelated to emotions in patients with EDs.

Method: A total of 17 patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), 16 patients with bulimic-spectrum EDs (BSD) and 20 healthy control (HC) participants completed an impulsivity scale (UPPS-P) before performing an emotional inhibitory control task during electroencephalography (EEG) acquisition.

What Difference Does it Make? Risk-Taking Behavior in Obesity after a Loss is Associated with Decreased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity.

Altered activity in decision-making neural circuitry may underlie the maladaptive food choices found in obesity. Here, we aimed to identify the brain regions purportedly underpinning risk-taking behavior in individuals with obesity. Twenty-three adult women with obesity and twenty-three healthy weight controls completed the Risky Gains Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

A multimodal MRI study of the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation impairment in women with obesity.

Maladaptive emotion regulation contributes to overeating and impedes weight loss. Our study aimed to compare the voluntary downregulation of negative emotions by means of cognitive reappraisal in adult women with obesity (OB) and female healthy controls (HC) using a data-driven, multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach. Women with OB (n = 24) and HC (n = 25) carried out an emotion regulation task during functional MRI scanning.

Food addiction and impaired executive functions in women with obesity.

Background: Individuals with obesity (OB) often report suffering from addiction-like symptoms. As in addictions, deficits in executive function domains, such as decision-making and sustained attention, are found in OB. No study to date has examined the associations between food addiction, OB, and neuropsychological performance.

Music-supported therapy in the rehabilitation of subacute stroke patients: a randomized controlled trial.

The effect of music-supported therapy (MST) as a tool to restore hemiparesis of the upper extremity after a stroke has not been appropriately contrasted with conventional therapy. The aim of this trial was to test the effectiveness of adding MST to a standard rehabilitation program in subacute stroke patients. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in which patients were randomized to MST or conventional therapy in addition to the rehabilitation program.

Decreased Corticospinal Excitability after the Illusion of Missing Part of the Arm.

Previous studies on body ownership illusions have shown that under certain multimodal conditions, healthy people can experience artificial body-parts as if they were part of their own body, with direct physiological consequences for the real limb that gets 'substituted.' In this study we wanted to assess (a) whether healthy people can experience 'missing' a body-part through illusory ownership of an amputated virtual body, and (b) whether this would cause corticospinal excitability changes in muscles associated with the 'missing' body-part. Forty right-handed participants saw a virtual body from a first person perspective but for half of them the virtual body was missing a part of its right arm.

Unexpected online gambling disorder in late-life: a case report.

Background: The lifetime prevalence of problem or Gambling disorder (GD) in the elderly (i.e., those over 60 years old) is reported to range from 0.

Plasticity in the sensorimotor cortex induced by Music-supported therapy in stroke patients: a TMS study.

Playing a musical instrument demands the engagement of different neural systems. Recent studies about the musician's brain and musical training highlight that this activity requires the close interaction between motor and somatosensory systems. Moreover, neuroplastic changes have been reported in motor-related areas after short and long-term musical training.

Sensorimotor plasticity after music-supported therapy in chronic stroke patients revealed by transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Background: Several recently developed therapies targeting motor disabilities in stroke sufferers have shown to be more effective than standard neurorehabilitation approaches. In this context, several basic studies demonstrated that music training produces rapid neuroplastic changes in motor-related brain areas. Music-supported therapy has been recently developed as a new motor rehabilitation intervention.

Prognostic value of cortically induced motor evoked activity by TMS in chronic stroke: caveats from a revealing single clinical case.

Background: We report the case of a chronic stroke patient (62 months after injury) showing total absence of motor activity evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of spared regions of the left motor cortex, but near-to-complete recovery of motor abilities in the affected hand.

Case Presentation: Multimodal investigations included detailed TMS based motor mapping, motor evoked potentials (MEP), and Cortical Silent period (CSP) as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of motor activity, MRI based lesion analysis and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) Tractography of corticospinal tract (CST). Anatomical analysis revealed a left hemisphere subinsular lesion interrupting the descending left CST at the level of the internal capsule.