Effects of spinal cord stimulation on heart rate variability in patients with chronic pain.

Background: Spinal cord stimulation has become an established clinical option for treatment of refractory chronic pain and angina pectoris, but its precise mechanism of action is unclear. We investigated the effect of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) on heart rate variability (HRV) and evaluating its influence on the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance in chronic pain. MATERIALS AND PURPOSE: Seven patients (three men, four women) with SCS due to chronic pain were included.

Secondarily generalized seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Purpose:   Secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizure (SGTCS) may occur rarely in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), but SGTCS is the major risk factor for sudden death and for seizure-related fatal injuries. Our aim was to investigate clinical factors associated with the occurrence of SGTCS in TLE by addressing two questions: (1) What clinical features differentiate patients with TLE who regularly had SGTCS from those who did not? (2) Is there an association of secondarily generalized seizures with preceding seizure elements and clinical data?

Methods:   We included 171 patients with TLE (mean age 34.4 ± 10) who participated in our presurgical evaluation program, which included continuous video-electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Reorganization of motor system in Parkinson's disease.

Background/aims: We investigated adaptive reorganization in Parkinson's disease (PD) by fMRI using a passive movement task and compared the brain activation patterns of 10 patients with left- versus right-sided dominant symptoms. Five healthy controls were also investigated with the same settings.

Methods: We grouped patients according to the predominant side of symptoms; thus, a right-sided dominant and a left-sided dominant group was formed.

Coffee consumption may influence hippocampal volume in young women.

Caffeine is the most often used psychoactive substance. Caffeine may influence neuroplasticity in animals. We investigated the relationship between caffeine intake (coffee consumption) and brain morphology.

Does obstetric brachial plexus injury influence speech dominance?

Objective: Right-handedness and left-sided language lateralization is an unresolved mystery with unknown cause/effect relations. Most studies suggest that the language lateralization is related to a fundamental brain asymmetry: right-handedness may be secondary. We analyzed the possibility of an opposite cause/effect relation: whether asymmetric hand usage (as a cause) can influence language lateralization (as a consequence).

[Brain lateralization and seizure semiology: ictal clinical lateralizing signs].

Clinical lateralizing signs are the phenomena which can unequivocally refer to the hemispheric onset of epileptic seizures. They can improve the localization of epileptogenic zone during presurgical evaluation, moreover, their presence can predict a success of surgical treatment. Primary sensory phenomena such as visual aura in one half of the field of vision or unilateral ictal somatosensory sensation always appear on the contralateral to the focus.

[Effect of epileptic seizures on the heart rate].

Background: Sudden death appears in 8-17% of epilepsy patients non-responding to antiepileptic therapy. Some studies suggest that the most common cause of death is seizure-related cardiac arrhythmia.

Aim Of Study: To analyze the alteration of the heart rate six hours before and after the seizures.