Clinical uses of Bupropion in patients with Parkinson's disease and comorbid depressive or neuropsychiatric symptoms: a scoping review.

Objective: Bupropion, an antidepressant inhibiting the reuptake of dopamine and noradrenaline, should be useful to treat depressive symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Limited and conflicting literature data questioned its effectiveness and safety in depressed PD patients and extended its use to other neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with this disorder.

Design: The databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Sciences, Cochrane Library, and the grey literature were searched.

Design and Operation of the Lombardy Parkinson's Disease Network.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common chronic neurological conditions leading to disability and social burden. According to the 2016 Italian National Plan on Chronic Diseases, regional health authorities are implementing dedicated networks to manage neurological diseases, including PD. A panel of experts representing health-care providers in Lombardy reached consensus on the organization of a patient-centered regional PD healthcare network.

Stereotypic behaviours in frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Introduction: The behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and the Richardson variant of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP-RS) share several clinical signs and symptoms. Since stereotypic behaviours are fairly common in bvFTD, and are also described in other degenerative dementias including Alzheimer's disease, and parkinsonisms with dementia, we aimed to examine the extent to which stereotypies also characterise PSP-RS.

Methods: We compared 53 bvFTD patients with 40 demented PSP-RS patients, seen consecutively as outpatients at four Italian Hospitals.

Anti-myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibodies: Magnetic resonance imaging findings in a case series and a literature review.

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein is a protein exclusively expressed on the surface of oligodendrocytes and myelin in the central nervous system. Antibodies against myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein were initially detected in children with demyelinating syndromes, and more recently reported in a broad spectrum of central nervous system demyelinating diseases in adults, including neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders and bilateral optic neuritis. Patients with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated demyelination appear to have unique clinical and radiological features.

The relevance of gender in Parkinson's disease: a review.

Since the official and systematic inclusion of sex and gender in biomedical research, gender differences have been acknowledged as important determinants of both the susceptibility to develop neurodegenerative diseases in general population and the clinical and therapeutic management of neurodegenerative patients. In this review, we gathered the available evidence on gender differences in Parkinson's disease (PD) regarding clinical phenotype (including motor and non-motor symptoms), biomarkers, genetics and therapeutic management (including pharmacological and surgical treatment). Finally, we will briefly discuss the role of estrogens in determining such differences.

Unusual primary central nervous system lymphoma location involving the fourth ventricle and hypothalamus.

A previously healthy 65-year-old man presented with a two-week history of weight loss, headaches, blurred vision, asthenia and quickly worsening walking impairment. He denied photophobia, neck stiffness, fever, nausea or vomiting.Neurological examination showed global motor slowing, tendency to fall asleep during the clinical examination, generalized weakness against resistance to head and limbs, and osteotendon reflexes present in the upper limbs, but not evoked in the lower limbs.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 17 (SCA17): oculomotor phenotype and clinical characterization of 15 Italian patients.

SCA17 is a rare type of autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxia caused by a CAG/CAA expansion in the gene encoding the TATA-binding protein (TBP). We screened for triplet expansion in the TBP gene 110 subjects with progressive cerebellar ataxia and 94 subjects with Huntington-like phenotype negative at specific molecular tests. SCA17 mutation-positive subjects were found in both groups of patients.

Monomelic amyotrophy associated with the 7472insC mutation in the mtDNA tRNASer(UCN) gene.

We describe a 49-year-old male patient who experienced progressive amyotrophy with no sensorial abnormality in the left arm since 45 years of age. The neuromuscular syndrome was identical to that known as Hirayama disease, a rare form of focal lower motor neuron disease affecting the C7-C8-T1 metamers of the spinal cord. Asymmetric neurosensorial hearing loss was present since age 35 in the patient, and was also documented in an elder sister and in the mother.

Molecular genetics of hereditary spinocerebellar ataxia: mutation analysis of spinocerebellar ataxia genes and CAG/CTG repeat expansion detection in 225 Italian families.

Background: Autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias are a clinical and genetically heterogeneous group of progressive neurodegenerative diseases, at present associated with 22 loci (spinocerebellar ataxia [SCA] 1-SCA8, SCA10-SCA19, SCA21, SCA22, fibroblast growth factor 14 [FGF14]-SCA, and dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy [DRPLA]). The relevant gene has been identified in 12 cases (SCA1-3, SCA6-8, SCA10, SCA12, FGF14, and DRPLA), and in all but the recently identified SCA14, SCA17, PRKCG and FGF14 genes, the defect consists of the expansion of a short nucleotide repeat.

Objectives: To investigate the relative prevalence of SCA1-3, SCA6-8, SCA10, SCA12, and SCA17 gene expansions in Italian families with hereditary ataxia, specifically to verify the occurrence of SCA10, SCA12, and SCA17 in Italy; and to analyze samples from probands with negative test results at the initial screening by means of the repeat expansion detection technique to identify CAG/CTG expansions in novel loci.