102 results match your criteria: "IRCCS Neuromed Institute[Affiliation]"

Maintaining balance stability while turning in a quasi-static stance and/or in dynamic motion requires proper recovery mechanisms to manage sudden center-of-mass displacement. Furthermore, falls during turning are among the main concerns of community-dwelling elderly population. This study investigates the effect of aging on reactive postural responses to continuous yaw perturbations on a cohort of 10 young adults (mean age 28 ± 3 years old) and 10 older adults (mean age 61 ± 4 years old).

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Genotypic Categorization of Loeys-Dietz Syndrome Based on 24 Novel Families and Literature Data.

Genes (Basel)

September 2019

Human Genetics Institute, Department of Life, Health, and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy.

Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) is a connective tissue disorder first described in 2005 featuring aortic/arterial aneurysms, dissections, and tortuosity associated with craniofacial, osteoarticular, musculoskeletal, and cutaneous manifestations. Heterozygous mutations in 6 genes (), encoding components of the TGF-β pathway, cause LDS. Such genetic heterogeneity mirrors broad phenotypic variability with significant differences, especially in terms of the age of onset, penetrance, and severity of life-threatening vascular manifestations and multiorgan involvement, indicating the need to obtain genotype-to-phenotype correlations for personalized management and counseling.

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Objective: Several focal muscle vibration (fMV) and whole body vibration (WBV) protocols have been designed to promote brain reorganization processes in patients with stroke. However, whether fMV and WBV should be considered helpful tools to promote post-stroke recovery remains still largely unclear.

Methods: We here achieve a comprehensive review of the application of fMV and WBV to promote brain reorganization processes in patients with stroke.

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Background: We investigated the effectiveness and safety of mirabegron oral treatment in a group of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and overactive bladder (OAB), refractory to antimuscarinics.

Materials And Methods: Thirty patients with PD and refractory OAB were prospectively included in the study. At baseline, motor symptoms, severity of disease and cognitive status were assessed with the Hoehn-Yahr Scale, the Unified Parkinson's disease Rating Scale, the Mini Mental State examination and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

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Background: Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a safe and painless non-invasive brain stimulation technique that has been largely used in the past 30 years to explore cortical function in healthy participants and, inter alia, the pathophysiology of movement disorders. During the years, its use has evolved from primarily research purposes to treatment of a large variety of neurological and psychiatric diseases. In this article, we illustrate the basic principles on which the therapeutic use of transcranial magnetic stimulation is based and review the clinical trials that have been performed in patients with movement disorders.

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Rising solutions for secondary treatment failure in patients on chronic botulinum neurotoxin therapy.

Clin Neurophysiol

June 2019

IRCCS Neuromed Institute, Pozzilli IS, Italy; Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Electronic address:

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Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by 4R tau protein deposition in several brain regions that clinically manifests itself as a heterogeneous atypical parkinsonism typically expressed in adulthood. The prototypical clinical phenotype of CBD is corticobasal syndrome (CBS). Important insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying motor and higher cortical symptoms in CBS have been gained by using advanced neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques.

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The spinal cord spinal cord has in the past been considered a hardwired system which responds to inputs in a stereotyped way. A growing body of data have instead demonstrated its ability to retain information and modify its effector capabilities, showing activity-dependent plasticity. Whereas, plasticity in the spinal cord is well documented after different forms of physical exercise, whether exogenous stimulation can induce similar changes is still a matter of debate.

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The Biological Mechanisms of Action of Cardiac Progenitor Cell Therapy.

Curr Cardiol Rep

August 2018

Department of Medical Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, "La Sapienza" University of Rome, Corso della Repubblica 79, 04100, Latina, Italy.

Purpose Of Review: Cell therapy for cardiovascular diseases is regarded as a rapidly growing field within regenerative medicine. Different cellular populations enriched for cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs), or derivate a-cellular products, are currently under preclinical and clinical evaluation. Here, we have reviewed the described mechanisms whereby resident post-natal CPCs, isolated in different ways, act as a therapeutic product on the damaged myocardium.

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Given the heterogeneous nature of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), sensitive biomarkers are greatly needed for the accurate diagnosis of this neurodegenerative disorder. Circulating miRNAs have been reported as promising biomarkers for neurodegenerative disorders and processes affecting the central nervous system, especially in aging. The objective of the study was to evaluate if some circulating miRNAs linked with apoptosis (miR-29b-3p, miR-34a-5p, miR-16-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-107, miR-19b-3p, let-7b-5p, miR-26b-5p, and 127-3p) were able to distinguish between FTD patients and healthy controls.

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Parkinsonism is associated with altered primary motor cortex plasticity in frontotemporal dementia-primary progressive aphasia variant.

Neurobiol Aging

September 2018

IRCCS Neuromed Institute, Pozzilli, Province of Isernia, Italy; Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy. Electronic address:

In frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the behavioral variant (bv-FTD) and nonfluent variant of primary progressive aphasia (nfv-PPA) reflect a prominent neurodegenerative involvement of the frontal lobe networks, which may include the premotor and motor areas and thus cause heterogeneous clinical symptoms including parkinsonism. With the technique of transcranial magnetic stimulation, we investigated long-term potentiation- and long-term depression-like plasticity in the primary motor cortex of bv-FTD and nfv-PPA patients, with and without parkinsonism, by using the theta-burst stimulation (TBS) protocol. We applied the intermittent TBS and continuous TBS in 20 FTD patients and 18 age-matched healthy subjects.

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Cell-Derived Exosomes for Cardiovascular Therapies: Y (Not) RNAs?

Hypertension

August 2018

From the Department of Medical Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (I.C., G.F.).

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Diagnostic criteria for camptocormia in Parkinson's disease: A consensus-based proposal.

Parkinsonism Relat Disord

August 2018

Neurology Unit, Movement Disorders Division, Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy. Electronic address:

Introduction: Camptocormia is defined as an involuntary, marked flexion of the thoracolumbar spine appearing during standing or walking and resolving in the supine position or when leaning against a wall. However, there is no established agreement on the minimum degree of forward flexion needed to diagnose camptocormia. Likewise, the current definition does not categorize camptocormia on the basis of the bending fulcrum.

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Objective:  To evaluate the long-term results of using the BacJac interspinous device (Pioneer Surgical Technology Inc.) in a series of patients with degenerative lumbar spine disease.

Methods:  Forty-one patients undergoing lumbar surgery with implantation of a BacJac device from 2009 to 2012 were enrolled in the present study.

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Deep brain stimulation and motor synergies in Parkinson's disease.

Clin Neurophysiol

June 2018

Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; IRCCS Neuromed Institute, Pozzilli IS, Italy. Electronic address:

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Boosting the LTP-like plasticity effect of intermittent theta-burst stimulation using gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation.

Brain Stimul

February 2019

Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale dell'Università 30, 00185, Rome, Italy; IRCCS Neuromed Institute, Via Atinense 18, 86077, Pozzilli, IS, Italy. Electronic address:

Background: Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) consists in delivering electric current to the brain using an oscillatory pattern that may entrain the rhythmic activity of cortical neurons. When delivered at gamma frequency, tACS modulates motor performance and GABA-A-ergic interneuron activity.

Objective: Since interneuronal discharges play a crucial role in brain plasticity phenomena, here we co-stimulated the primary motor cortex (M1) in healthy subjects by means of tACS during intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS), a transcranial magnetic stimulation paradigm known to induce long-term potentiation (LTP)-like plasticity.

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Pain-motor integration and chronic pain: One step ahead.

Clin Neurophysiol

May 2018

Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; IRCCS Neuromed Institute, Pozzilli, IS, Italy. Electronic address:

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Freezing of gait (FOG) is a disabling disorder that often affects Parkinson's disease (PD) patients in advanced stages of the disease. To study structural gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) changes in PD patients with and without FOG, twenty-one PD patients with FOG (PD-FOG), 16 PD patients without FOG (PD-nFOG) and 19 healthy subjects (HS) underwent a standardized MRI protocol. For the gray matter evaluation, cortical volume (CV), cortical thickness (CTh), and surface area (SA) were analyzed using the FreeSurfer pipeline.

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Several techniques and protocols of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation (NIBS), including transcranial magnetic and electrical stimuli, have been developed in the past decades. Non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation may modulate cortical excitability outlasting the period of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation itself from several minutes to more than one hour. Quite a few lines of evidence, including pharmacological, physiological and behavioral studies in humans and animals, suggest that the effects of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation are produced through effects on synaptic plasticity.

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The original protocol of Paired Associative Stimulation (PAS) in humans implies repetitive cortical and peripheral nerve stimuli, delivered at specific inter-stimulus intervals, able to elicit non-invasively long-term potentiation (LTP)- and long-term depression (LTD)-like plasticity in the human motor cortex. PAS has been designed to drive cortical LTP/LTD according to the Hebbian rule of associative plasticity. Over the last two decades, a growing number of researchers have increasingly used the PAS technique to assess cortical associative plasticity in healthy humans and in patients with movement disorders and other neuropsychiatric diseases.

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Freezing of gait (FOG) is a leading cause of falls and fractures in Parkinson's disease (PD). The episodic and rather unpredictable occurrence of FOG, coupled with the variable response to l-DOPA of this gait disorder, makes the objective evaluation of FOG severity a major clinical challenge in the therapeutic management of patients with PD. The aim of this study was to examine and compare gait, clinically and objectively, in patients with PD, with and without FOG, by means of a new wearable system.

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