Publications by authors named "Yiolanda Christou"

Background: Despite functional connectivity network dysfunction among individuals with headaches, no studies have examined functional connectivity neural correlates and anatomical differences in coping with headaches.

Methods: This study investigated inter-individual variability in whole-brain functional connectivity and anatomical differences among 37 individuals with primary headaches and 24 age- and gender-matched controls, and neural correlates of psychological flexibility (PF) that was previously found to contribute to headache adjustment. Participants (84% women; M headache severity = 4/10; M age = 43 years) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scans and completed questionnaires to examine global and subnetwork brain areas, and their relations with PF components, controlling for age, gender, education, and head-motion.

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Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms. The etiology of PD remains unclear. However, several studies have demonstrated the interplay of genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors in PD.

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Episodic memory decline is the prominent neuropsychological feature of typical Alzheimer's Disease (AD), for which current treatments have a limited clinical response. Recently, gamma entrainment therapy has been used as a non-invasive treatment in AD, providing evidence that it may have the potential to alleviate brain pathology and improve cognitive function in AD patients. At the same time, the precuneus (PC) has been recognized as a key area involved in AD related memory deficits and as a key node of the Default Mode Network.

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Background: Central precocious puberty (CPP) due to premature activation of GnRH secretion results in early epiphyseal fusion and to a significant compromise in the achieved final adult height. Currently, few genetic determinants of children with CPP have been described. In this translational study, rare sequence variants in , , , and genes were investigated in patients with CPP.

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Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder, and literature suggests that genetics and lifestyle/environmental factors may play a key role in the triggering of the disease. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive performance of a 12-Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) polygenic risk score (PRS) in combination with already established PD-environmental/lifestyle factors.

Methods: Genotypic and lifestyle/environmental data on 235 PD-patients and 464 controls were obtained from a previous study carried out in the Cypriot population.

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Background: Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of behavioural headache interventions, it is not yet known which intervention processes account for treatment responses. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), an emerging behavioural intervention for headaches, proposes psychological flexibility (PF) processes as the mechanisms via which intervention change occurs. This is the first study examining these processes of change variables on headache-related disability and quality of life (treatment outcome).

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Prevention of headaches via avoidance of triggers remains the main behavioral treatment suggestion for headache management despite trigger avoidance resulting in increases in potency, lifestyle restrictions, internal locus of control decreases, pain exacerbation and maintenance. New approaches, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), instead emphasize acceptance and valued living as alternatives to avoidance. Though ACT is an empirically supported treatment for chronic pain, there is limited evidence for headache management while preliminary outcome studies are afflicted with methodological limitations.

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Background: Brain metastasis (BM) is an increasingly common and devastating complication of breast cancer (BC).

Methods: A systematic literature search of EMBASE and MEDLINE was conducted to elucidate the current state of knowledge on known and novel prognostic factors associated with 1) the risk for BCBM and 2) the time to brain metastases (TTBM).

Results: A total of 96 studies involving institutional records from 28 countries were identified.

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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting a substantial proportion of the elderly Cypriot population. The objective of this study was to evaluate PD risk variants that have been identified previously in Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and to find environmental factors that are predictors for PD onset in the Cypriot population. A case-control study was conducted with a total of 235 PD patients and 464 healthy controls of Greek-Cypriot ethnicity.

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Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare, progressive neurodegenerative disease. There is heterogeneity of clinical phenotypes while a clinical characterization of ALS in Cyprus is still lacking. The aim of this 30-year retrospective study of ALS in Cyprus is to determine the demographic characteristics of patients, the clinical features of the disease, the uptake of supportive therapies and factors influencing survival.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of rituximab (RTX) in Cypriot patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), gathering data from 30 patients treated off-label until 2018.
  • - Results showed that patients with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) had no relapses and improved or stable disability scores (EDSS), while secondary progressive MS (SPMS) patients experienced reduced relapse rates and slight EDSS improvements after treatment.
  • - The treatment was generally well tolerated, with only a few severe adverse events reported, aligning with findings from larger studies that also highlighted RTX's efficacy in managing RRMS and SPMS.
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Background: Despite evidence supporting an involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of some neurodegenerative disorders, there are inconsistent findings concerning mitochondrial haplogroups and their association to neurodegenerative disorders, including idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods: To test this hypothesis for the Greek-Cypriot population, a cohort of 230 PD patients and 457 healthy matched controls were recruited. Mitochondrial haplogroup distributions for cases and controls were determined.

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Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy, which is characterised by progressive muscle wasting and the discovery of reliable blood-based biomarkers could be useful for the disease progress monitoring. There have been some reports showing that the presence of specific miRNAs in blood correlates with DM1. In one of these, our group identified four muscle-specific miRNAs, miR-1, miR-133a, miR-133b and miR-206, which correlated with the progression of muscle wasting observed in DM1 patients.

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Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare, rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease. Despite wide variability in the incidence and prevalence of ALS, there is evidence of positive temporal trends and an increase in incidence with age. The aim of this study was to conduct a detailed epidemiological investigation of ALS in Cyprus.

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Introduction: Huntington's disease (HD) has profound motor, behavioural and cognitive symptoms. Despite the enormous burden of this disease on the quality of life (QoL) of patients and their families, there is very limited evidence on this topic. Considering the severity of HD patients, and the high prevalence in Cyprus more studies are needed to assess QoL among Cypriot patients, in order to improve our knowledge about their living conditions and to assist the management of this condition.

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The discovery of reliable and sensitive blood biomarkers is useful for the diagnosis, monitoring and potential future therapy of diseases. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been identified in blood circulation and might have the potential to be used as biomarkers for several diseases and clinical conditions. Myotonic Dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy primarily characterized by muscle myotonia, weakness and atrophy.

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Whereas the coexistence of different autoimmune or rheumatologic diseases with myasthenia gravis is well documented, the combination of myasthenia with sarcoidosis is extremely rare. There very few case reports of patients suffering from these two immune-mediated diseases. Nearly all had acetylcholine receptor antibodies.

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