Tanacetum parthenium and Salix alba (Mig-RL) combination in migraine prophylaxis: a prospective, open-label study.

Background: Tanacetum parthenium (feverfew) has been used traditionally to treat migraine, and although its mechanism of action is not fully understood, serotonin 5-HT receptor blocking effects have been suggested. T. parthenium and Salix alba (white willow) either alone or in combination (Mig-RL) were recently shown to inhibit binding to 5-HT(2A/2C) receptors; T.

Are prescribed medications effective in the treatment of insomnia complaints?

Although frequently investigated in the general population, the epidemiology of insomnia complaints and their treatment have received little attention in general practice. This study recruited patients > or =15 years of age, consecutively, from 127 general practitioners in France. The physicians collected data from 11,810 of their patients, of whom 55.

A comparison of the electroencephalographic spectral modifications induced by diazepam and by hydroxyzine.

A double-blind, randomized controlled trial using an electroencephalograph computerized analysis and cartography was carried out to investigate the spectral modifications induced by diazepam and hydroxyzine. Without monitoring response to stimulation, the spectra found for diazepam and for hydroxyzine were qualitatively very similar, showing increase of the slow waves, reduction of the alpha rhythm and accentuation of the beta 1 rhythms. These traces suggested strongly that both drugs had produced a sedative, anti-anxiety effect.

A comparison of central and peripheral effects of cetirizine and loratadine.

In a double-blind, crossover, randomized clinical pharmacological study performed on 10 healthy volunteers, peripheral and central effects of 10 mg cetirizine and 10 and 40 mg loratadine were compared. Cetirizine (10 mg) significantly (P less than 0.001) inhibited 10 or 100 mg/ml histamine-induced weals 2 and 6 h after drug intake.

[Prevention of late post-traumatic epilepsy by phenytoin in severe brain injuries. 2 years' follow-up].

The high incidence rate and the invalidating nature of post-traumatic epilepsy after severe brain injury have encouraged the authors to review the prophylactic treatment of this type of epilepsy. Thirty-four out of 86 randomised patients with brain injuries admitted into a neurotraumatology intensive care unit were treated prophylactically, immediately after the injury, with an intravenous hydantoin injection in a dose sufficient to provide stable and effective blood levels. This was followed by dose-adjusted oral administration maintained for a minimum period of 3 months.

[Central effects of five beta-adrenergic receptor blockers in healthy volunteers: a quantitative EEG study].

The effects of five beta blockers on the central nervous system of healthy subjects was studied by computerized EEG analysis. All subjects underwent continuous recording with a Holter magnetic type recorder during the experimental period. For 10 consecutive days, five groups of subjects received alternately placebo and the beta blockers acebutolol 600 mg, carteolol 20 mg, metoprolol 200 mg, pindolol 30 mg and sotalol 320 mg.

Comparison of the central and peripheral effects of cetirizine and terfenadine.

The peripheral and central effects of 10 mg cetirizine 2 HCl and 60 mg terfenadine have been compared with placebo in 9 healthy male volunteers. The peripheral effect, in terms of cutaneous reactivity to 1 microgram histamine i.d.

[Demonstration, by the cartographic test, of an unusual reaction to intermittent light stimulation in patients with migraine].

Topographic electroencephalography was carried out to study reaction to photic stimulation in 29 normal volunteers, and 12 patients who had presented frequent clinically confirmed migraines for at least 3 years. In the group of migraineurs photic stimulation resulted in an increase in the alpha band power. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant.

Effects of sotalol on ambulatory electrocardiography in volunteers.

The effects of sotalol dosing, 160, 240, and 320 mg/day, for 10 days in seven healthy volunteers were studied. Twenty-four-hour ECG was recorded continuously under placebo and on days 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14. Sotalol at the three doses significantly lowered mean heart rate, reducing mean diurnal heart rate significantly between noon and 6:00 PM and decreasing mean nocturnal heart rate between midnight and 6:00 AM at 320 mg/day.

[Early per- and postoperative epileptic seizures during operations on osteomeningeal breaches. Value of preventive treatment with hydantoins].

The value of prophylactic anti-epileptic treatment in surgery of osteomeningeal breaches has been studied. This surgery exposes to a high risk of seizures, 20 to 25 of our cases after conventional surgery. 74 operated cases of osteomeningeal breaches, among then 38 under preventive anti-epileptic therapy are reviewed.

Activities of five antidepressants in a behavioral pain test in rats.

Various clinical and experimental reports indicate that antidepressant drugs can have analgesic properties. The authors tested successively the anti-nociceptive activity of desipramine, clomipramine, maprotiline, viloxazine and nomifensine on the acute experimental pain model designed by Charpentier. At 25 mg/kg, desipramine showed a marked antalgic action.

Influence of naloxone and methysergide on the analgesic effect of clomipramine in rats.

The effects of the tricyclic antidepressant clomipramine were studied in two analgesic tests in rats: (1) vocalization threshold response; and (2) scored behavioral response to electric shock to the tail. Clomipramine (20-50 mg/kg i.p.

[Short-term effects of gamma-globulins on sleep organization in epileptic patients (author's transl)].

A study of the effect of gamma-globulins on sleep was conducted in 8 patients aged 1 to 35 years with epilepsy not responding to any of the conventional treatments. Two polygraphic recordings were carried out during the 4th and 5th nights following a placebo injection and then an injection of gamma-globulin 16 Merieux (1 ml/kg). The short-term effects of the gamma-globulins were : --reduction in percentage of paroxysms, --an acceleration in the electroencephalographic tracings of the different stages of sleep and those of the waking period, --a statistically significant increase in the percentage of paradoxical sleep, though the general organization of sleep remained unchanged.

[Echovirus encephalitis during Bruton disease. Favorable development. Therapeutic problems].

A 16 year old boy with Bruton type agammaglobulinaemia developed acute encephalitis. Echo virus type 3 was isolated on two occasions from the same sample of CSF. Clinical improvement occured after treatment with gammaglobulin with high anti-Echo virus titers given intramuscularly and intrathecally.

Negative effects of chronic hemicerebellectomy of epileptiform after-discharges elicited by focal cortical stimulation in baboons (Papio papio).

The influence of chronic hemicerebellectomy on cortical epileptiform after-discharge (AD) induced by focal electrical stimulation was studied in the baboon. These preliminary results include 22 ADs elicited from motor cortex and 22 ADs elicited from premotor cortex before and after hemicerebellectomy. Only full-developed, generalized seizures with postictal silence were considered.

[The treatment of epileptic encephalopathies with gamma globulin in children (author's transl)].

The authors have treated 10 children presenting with severe epilepsy with repeated large doses of gamma-globulin. They noted a marked improvement in 7 of the children with respect to behaviour and a disappearance of seizures in 8 with comparable EEG improvement. Four children have been able to reduce their conventional anticonvulsant therapy considerably and 2 others havers received no other medication at all for 8 months.

[Effects of clonazepam taken per os by children with rebellious epileptic encephalopathies].

The effect of clonazepam, taken per-os and in very progressive doses, has been studied by the authors on fourteen children afflicted with evolutive epileptic encephalopathies and still presenting, in spite of heavy anti-epileptic polychemio-therapies, alarming clinical and electrical manifestations. Clonazepam proved to be an efficient contributive factor in the course of a curing process since, in 70% of the cases, it produced quite a visible amelioration. Its efficient action seems to last longer than that of other diazepines since half of their patients have now been treated with it for more than a year with, as a result, a constant clinical and electrical amelioration.

Parkinsonian akinesia, rigidity and tremor in the monkey. Histopathological and neuropharmacological study.

Parkinsonian postural tremor and rigidity most likely involve the disruption of the dopaminergic (DA) nigrostriatal mechanisms and the corresponding rubro-olivo-cerebello-rubral loop without excluding the involvement of related dentato-rubral and dentato-thalamic nervous fascicles. The integrity of the magnocellular division of the red nucleus and of the rubrotegmentospinal pathway, however, is apparently essential for the expression of rigidity. Akinesia most likely results from the bilateral involvement of brain stem catecholaminergic (CA) mechanisms including the DA nigrostriatal pathways.

Physiopathology of experimental Parkinsonism in the monkey.

Postural or Parkinson-like tremor, which results from the impairment of mechanisms which are predominantly lateralized in the brain, is most likely related to the combined impairment of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathway and the corresponding rubro-olivo-cerebello-rubral loop (without excluding the possiblity that other nervous mechanisms interconnected with these structures may represent an alternative disturbance). The integrity of the internal division of the pallidum and the ventrolateral area of the thalamus and their efferent fibers as well as the motor cortex and certain of its cortico-subcortico-spinal pathways (Figures 1 and 2) is apparently an essential feature for the elaboration of the rhythmic bursts associated with the appearance of postural tremor. The integrity of the spinal sensory roots and the rubro-tegmentospinal tract is not a prerequisite for the expression of postural tremor, a condition which seems essential for the production of rigidity.