Motor representation of actions in children with autism.

Background: Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are frequently hampered by motor impairment, with difficulties ranging from imitation of actions to recognition of motor intentions. Such a widespread inefficiency of the motor system is likely to interfere on the ontogeny of both motor planning and understanding of the goals of actions, thus delivering its ultimate effects on the emergence of social cognition.

Methodology/principal Findings: We investigate the organization of action representation in 15 high functioning ASD (mean age: 8.

Care to relieve pain-stress in preterm newborns.

Background And Aim Of The Work: A variety of non-pharmacological pain-prevention and relief techniques have been studied to evaluate the pain reduction in neonates. The aim of our study was to compare the analgesic effect of sucking a pacifier with the use of eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics (EMLA) during venipuncture in preterm newborns, using physiological and behavioural parameters as indicators of pain.

Methods: We analysed the reaction to invasive procedures in 17 preterm newborns.

Unusual diagnosis in a child suffering from juvenile Alexander disease: clinical and imaging report.

Alexander disease is a rare, sporadic leukoencephalopathy characterized by white-matter abnormalities with frontal predominance and, as a rule, clinically associated with megalencephaly, seizures, spasticity, and psychomotor deterioration. We describe a boy who was diagnosed as affected by anorexia nervosa because of his refusal to eat, progressive weight loss, and psychologic disturbances. The observation of a hyperintense lesion on T(2)-weighed magnetic resonance images (MRIs) was initially explained as a pontine and extrapontine myelinolysis related to malnutrition.

Clinical features of benign infantile convulsions: familial and sporadic cases.

The authors describe the so-called benign convulsions of infancy and confirm the existence of benign nonfamilial infantile convulsions during the first 2 years of life and their benign course. The authors evaluated 58 patients: 17 subjects had a family history of benign epilepsy, and 41 did not. No clinical differences were observed between the two groups.

Verbal versus non-verbal performances in mild Alzheimer's disease.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of cognitive impairment in mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). We tested thirty patients (10 men and 20 women) with mini mental state examination (MMSE) scores between 20 and 24. The mental deterioration battery (MDB) was administered to all subjects.