Increasing cutaneous afferent feedback improves proprioceptive accuracy at the knee in patients with sensory ataxia.

Hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy type III (HSAN III) features disturbed proprioception and a marked ataxic gait. We recently showed that joint angle matching error at the knee is positively correlated with the degree of ataxia. Using intraneural microelectrodes, we also documented that these patients lack functional muscle spindle afferents but have preserved large-diameter cutaneous afferents, suggesting that patients with better proprioception may be relying more on proprioceptive cues provided by tactile afferents.

Neural regulation of the kidney function in rats with cisplatin induced renal failure.

Aim: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is often associated with a disturbed cardiovascular homeostasis. This investigation explored the role of the renal innervation in mediating deranged baroreflex control of renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) and renal excretory function in cisplatin-induced renal failure.

Methods: Rats were either intact or bilaterally renally denervated 4 days prior to receiving cisplatin (5 mg/kg i.

Cerebellar and parkinsonian phenotypes in multiple system atrophy: similarities, differences and survival.

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a neurodegenerative disease with two motor phenotypes: parkinsonian (MSA-P) and cerebellar (MSA-C). To elucidate whether in addition to the motor abnormalities there are other significant differences between these phenotypes, we performed a retrospective review of 100 patients (61 males, 39 females) with a diagnosis of possible (12 %), or probable (88 %) MSA. Four patients eventually had post-mortem confirmation (i.