Impulsivity and Attention in Obsessive Compulsive and Tic Disorders: Mismatch in Self-Report and Behavioural Data.

Impulsivity is a multidimensional, cross-diagnostic behavioural construct that has been described in various psychiatric disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette syndrome (TS). Different interpretations of results in the past have raised the question of heightened impulsivity as an explanatory model for self-described impulsive behaviour, especially in OCD. Our study included 16 patients with OCD, 14 patients with TS, and 28 healthy control subjects (HC).

Patients with isolated REM-sleep behavior disorder have elevated levels of alpha-synuclein aggregates in stool.

Misfolded and aggregated α-synuclein is a neuropathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD). Thus, α-synuclein aggregates are regarded as a biomarker for the development of diagnostic assays. Quantification of α-synuclein aggregates in body fluids is challenging, and requires highly sensitive and specific assays.

Thalamic deep brain stimulation for Tourette Syndrome: A naturalistic trial with brief randomized, double-blinded sham-controlled periods.

Background: There is still a lack of controlled studies to prove efficacy of thalamic deep brain stimulation for Tourette's Syndrome.

Objectives: In this controlled trial, we investigated the course of tic severity, comorbidities and quality of life during thalamic stimulation and whether changes in tic severity can be assigned to ongoing compared to sham stimulation.

Methods: We included eight adult patients with medically refractory Tourette's syndrome.

Deep brain stimulation and sensorimotor gating in tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Recent translational data suggest that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) loops improves sensorimotor gating in psychiatric disorders that show deficient prepulse inhibition (PPI), a robust operational measure of sensorimotor gating. To our knowledge we are the first to investigate this effect in patients with Tourette syndrome (TS). We measured PPI of the acoustic startle reflex in patients with TS (N = 10) or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (N = 8) treated with DBS of the centromedian and ventro-oral internal thalamic nucleus and the anterior limb of internal capsule-nucleus accumbens area respectively, and aged- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC).