Preserved working memory performance along with subcortical modulation during peri-ictal phases in spontaneous migraine attacks.

Objective: To analyze cognitive performance and brain activation during a working memory task in patients with migraine during various phases of the migraine cycle and compare to healthy participants.

Background: Cognitive difficulties reported during migraine attacks remain poorly understood, despite evidence that the lateral frontoparietal network undergoes reversible disturbances and decreased activation during attacks. Recent findings in resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging suggest that brain areas involved in this network interact with subcortical regions during spontaneous migraine attacks.

Neglect scoring modifications in the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale improve right hemisphere stroke lesion volume prediction.

Background: The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) does not equitably assess stroke severity in the two cerebral hemispheres. By attributing a maximum of two points for neglect and seven for language, it undervalues right hemisphere deficits. We aimed to investigate if NIHSS equally predicts right hemisphere lesion volumes in patients with and without neglect, and if a modification of the neglect scoring rules could increase its predictive capacity.

The subcortical and neurochemical organization of the ventral and dorsal attention networks.

Attention is a core cognitive function that filters and selects behaviourally relevant information in the environment. The cortical mapping of attentional systems identified two segregated networks that mediate stimulus-driven and goal-driven processes, the Ventral and the Dorsal Attention Networks (VAN, DAN). Deep brain electrophysiological recordings, behavioral data from phylogenetic distant species, and observations from human brain pathologies challenge purely corticocentric models.

Clinical presentation and neural correlates of stroke-associated spatial delusions.

Background And Purpose: Incongruent beliefs about self-localization in space markedly disturb patients' behavior. Spatial delusions, or reduplicative paramnesias, are characterized by a firm conviction of place reduplication, transformation, or mislocation. Evidence suggests they are frequent after right hemisphere lesions, but comprehensive information about their clinical features is lacking.

Structural disconnectome analysis of acute freezing of gait due to parietal stroke: implications for FOG pathogenesis.

Acute onset isolated freezing of gait (FOG) is a rare and defying diagnosis. Its pathophysiology is not yet totally understood and several brain regions seem to be involved. Postlesional FOG can help to shed light on the networks involved.

Mapping delusions of space onto a structural disconnectome that decouples familiarity and place networks.

Interpretation of space is an important determinant of human behaviour. Delusions of space, or reduplicative paramnesias, are a particularly disturbing form of spatial disorientation characterized by the patients' strong belief of place reduplication, transformation or mislocation. Their occurrence following focal brain damage provides a unique opportunity to unveil the structural-functional basis of space misinterpretations.

Unravelling the Neural Basis of Spatial Delusions After Stroke.

Objective: Knowing explicitly where we are is an interpretation of our spatial representations. Reduplicative paramnesia is a disrupting syndrome in which patients present a firm belief of spatial mislocation. Here, we studied the largest sample of patients with delusional misidentifications of space (ie, reduplicative paramnesia) after stroke to shed light on their neurobiology.

An image is not always worth a thousand words: an image mimic of transient global amnesia.

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a neurological syndrome with rather distinctive brain MRI features, namely hyperintense lesion in hippocampus on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequences. Post-traumatic amnesia is another amnestic syndrome which can also show hyperintense lesions in brain MRI due to cytotoxic oedema caused by traumatic brain injury. We present a case of a patient with post-traumatic amnesia with a brain MRI image mimic of TGA.

Cognitive aging in migraine sufferers is associated with more subjective complaints but similar age-related decline: a 5-year longitudinal study.

Objectives And Background: The effect of headache on cognitive performance is controversial, due to conflicting results obtained from studies in clinical or population settings. We aimed to understand if migraine and other headaches modify the rates of decline on different cognitive measures, during a 5-year interval.

Design And Method: A cohort of community dwelling adults (> 50 years) with migraine (MH), non-migraine headaches (NMH) and controls without headache (WoH), was assessed by a comprehensive neuropsychological battery with tests of memory, language and executive functions, repeated 5 years apart.

Undetermined stroke genesis and hidden cardiomyopathies determined by cardiac magnetic resonance.

Objective: To determine whether cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) could be useful in identifying previously undiagnosed cardiomyopathies in a cohort of patients with ischemic stroke who underwent standard etiologic investigation and to describe the type and frequency of these cardiomyopathies.

Methods: We performed a subanalysis of a previously collected prospective cohort of patients with ischemic stroke. Patients with structural changes on echocardiography that are considered causal for stroke in the Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment (TOAST) classification were excluded.

An improved neuroanatomical model of the default-mode network reconciles previous neuroimaging and neuropathological findings.

The brain is constituted of multiple networks of functionally correlated brain areas, out of which the default-mode network (DMN) is the largest. Most existing research into the DMN has taken a corticocentric approach. Despite its resemblance with the unitary model of the limbic system, the contribution of subcortical structures to the DMN may be underappreciated.

Women Who Have Ischemic Strokes Have a Higher Burden of Left Atrial Fibrosis Than Men.

Background and Purpose- Women with atrial fibrillation (AF) have a higher risk of stroke than men who have AF. Atrial fibrosis is a marker of atrial disease that precedes the appearance of AF increasing the risk of ischemic stroke. We aimed to determine whether female sex is independently associated with left atrial fibrosis in stroke patients.