European Neurology

INTRODUCTION: Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease with insidious onset and progressive progression, of which the most common type is Alzheimer's disease (AD). Lithium, a trace element in the body, has neuroprotective properties. However, whether lithium can treat dementia or AD remains a highly controversial topic. Therefore we conducted a meta-analysis. METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Comparison of the effects of lithium on Alzheimer's disease or dementia in terms of use, duration, and dosage, and meta-analysis to test whether lithium therapy is beneficial in ameliorating the onset of dementia or Alzheimer's disease...

INTRODUCTION: The present study aimed at testing the longitudinal feasibility of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in an Italian cohort of non-demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. METHODS: N=39 non-demented ALS patients were followed-up at a 5-to-10-month interval (M=6.8; SD=1.4) with the MoCA and the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen (ECAS). Practice effects, test-retest reliability and predictive validity (against follow-up ECAS scores) were assessed...

INTRODUCTION: Malignant cerebral edema (MCE) is a serious complication and the main cause of poor prognosis in patients with large-hemisphere infarction (LHI). Therefore, the rapid and accurate identification of potential patients with MCE is essential for timely therapy. This study utilized an artificial intelligence-based machine learning approach to establish an interpretable model for predicting MCE in patients with LHI. METHODS: This study included 314 patients with LHI not undergoing recanalization therapy...

Introduction：This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of cerebellar repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the rehabilitation of post-stroke dysphagia (PSD). Methods: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we systematically searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science to identify relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the application of cerebellar rTMS in the treatment of PSD...

INTRODUCTION: Cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery are among the specialties that most commonly require neurology inpatient consultations. We aimed to study the neurology referrals by the cardiovascular-specialized hospital included in our tertiary hospital center. METHODS: Retrospective study of consecutive patients referred for neurology inpatient consultation between 01/01/2020 and 31/12/2022. We analyzed referrals, patients' characteristics, and the approach taken...

Combined central and peripheral demyelination (CCPD) is is a rare disease characterized by demyelinating lesions in both the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). CCPD can present with acute, subacute or chronic onset. The initial symptom may be of CNS origin, PNS origin or both. The clinical manifestations of CCPD are quite heterogeneous, and there are no well-defined diagnostic criteria. In MRI imaging of CCPD cases, demyelinating lesions can be seen in areas such as the brain, cerebellum, brainstem, optic nerve, and spinal cord...

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between Parkinson's disease (PD) and myocardial infarction (MI), atrial fibrillation and flutter (AF), and venous thromboembolism (VTE) by Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. METHODS: By using data from publicly available genome-wide association studies from databases, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were screened as instrumental variables (IVs), and finished the MR analysis by inverse-variance weighted (IVW), MR-egger, weighted median methods...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Ischemic stroke (IS) may have impact on long-term health-related quality of life (HRQoL) even in the patients with good clinical outcome, and tools mostly used for the assessment of outcome may underestimate or not reflect all relevant sequels after IS. We aimed to analyse HRQoL in the patients with excellent outcome after IS. METHODS: We analysed consecutive IS patients enrolled in the prospective FRAILTY study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04839887) with excellent three-month clinical outcome (score 0-1 in modified Rankin Scale, mRS)...

Introduction - The integration of vestibular, visual, and somatosensory cues allows the perception of space through the orientation of our body and surrounding objects with respect to gravity. The main goal of this study was to identify the cortical networks recruited during the representation of body midline and the representation of verticality. Methods - Thirty right-handed healthy participants were evaluated using fMRI. Brain networks activated during a subjective straight-ahead (SSA) task were compared to those recruited during a subjective vertical (SV) task...

BACKGROUND: Contrast-induced neurotoxicity (CIN) is an increasingly observed event following the administration of iodinated contrast. It presents as a spectrum of neurological symptoms that closely mimic ischaemic stroke, however, CIN remains a poorly understood clinical phenomenon. An appreciation of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms is essential to improve clinical understanding and enhance decision-making. METHODS: A broad literature search of Medline (1946 to December 2022) and Embase (1947 to December 2022) was conducted...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Background Electroencephalography has long been used to detect seizures in patients with disorders of consciousness. In recent years, there has been a drastically increased adoption of continuous EEG (cEEG) in the ICUs. Summary Despite the development of increasingly performant imaging techniques and several validated biomarkers, EEG remains central to clinicians in the intensive care unit, and is experiencing expanding indications. Not only does EEG allow seizure or status epilepticus detection, which in the ICU often present without clinical movements, but it is also central for the prognostic evaluation of comatose patients, especially after cardiac arrest, and for detecting delayed ischemia after subarachnoid hemorrhage...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVE: To construct and validate a nomogram that combines diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters and clinically relevant features for predicting the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHOD: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the MRI and clinical data of 121 MCI patients, of whom 32 progressed to AD during a four-year follow-up period. The MCI patients were divided into training and validation sets at a ratio of 7:3...

INTRODUCTION: The pathogenesis of cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) is incompletely understood but blood-brain barrier (BBB) leakage may play a key role. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between compromised BBB integrity and CMBs as well as cognitive function. METHODS: Ninety-seven participants were enrolled in this cross-sectional study, involving 24 CMBs patients. Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced (DCE)-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was used to measure BBB permeability, and cognitive function was assessed by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)...

BACKGROUND: Many clinical studies reported the coexistence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and multiple sclerosis (MS), but the common molecular signature between AD and MS remains elusive. The purpose of our study is to explore the genetic linkage between AD and MS through bioinformatic analysis, providing new insights into the shared signatures and possible pathogenesis of two diseases. METHODS: The common differential expressed genes (DEGs) were determined between AD and MS from datasets obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database...

INTRODUCTION: Sleep disorders are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and significantly impact quality of life. Herein, we surveyed the incidence and severity of sleep disorders in Chinese PD patients and observed their relationship with dopaminergic drugs. METHODS: We collected the demographic and disease information of 232 PD patients. The incidence and severity of sleep disorders were surveyed with the Parkinson's disease sleep scale (PDSS) Chinese version. Data on dopaminergic drug intake was collected and converted to levodopa equivalent doses (LED)...

INTRODUCTION: Smoking is an established risk factor for stroke. However, several studies have reported a better outcome after stroke for patients who smoke. According to this "smoking paradox" hypothesis, smoking might promote less severe strokes, higher collateral scores and smaller infarct cores. METHODS: In this retrospective study, we screened data of 2980 acute ischemic stroke patients with MCA-M1 occlusion treated with mechanical thrombectomy. Patients were categorized according to smoking status (current, former or never)...

OBJECTIVES: In this study, we aimed to investigate changes in the total cerebellar volume, subdivisions of the cerebellar volume, and intrinsic cerebellar network in patients with isolated Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) compared to health controls. METHODS: We enrolled patients with newly diagnosed iRBD and healthy controls who had no structural lesions according to their brain MRI. All participants underwent three-dimensional T1-weighted imaging...

INTRODUCTION: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune demyelinating disease that secondarily leads to the axonal loss and associated brain atrophy. Disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) have previously been studied for their ability to affect specific immunity. This study investigates the effect of interferon beta-1a (INF) and glatiramer acetate (GA) administration on changes in innate immunity cell populations. METHODS: Sixty Caucasian female patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis undergo blood sample testing for 15 blood parameters at baseline, 1M, 3M and 6M after treatment by GA or IFN (started as their first line DMD)...