Introduction: While tremor is considered a cardinal motor sign in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), little is known about the evolution of the different types of PD tremor over time.
Aims: Our objectives were to assess the rate of progression of the various types of PD tremor over the disease course and to verify if the presence of different tremors is consistently associated with specific motor and non-motor burdens over time. Finally, we investigated whether the presence of different tremors can predict specific trajectories of disease progression.
The cerebellum plays a crucial role in motor learning, facilitating processes such as timing, error correction, and coordination. However, optimizing noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) to enhance these processes remains challenging. This study investigated the effects of cerebellar transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at 5 Hz and 50 Hz on motor learning during a serial reaction time task (SRTT).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Increased theta-band intermuscular coherence (IMC) between neck muscles has been reported as pathophysiological features of cervical dystonia (CD).
Objectives: investigate whether increased theta power and IMC are specific to the affected muscles, cortically driven, and actively contribute to dystonic contractions by examining the effect of sensory trick (ST) and analyzing correlations with clinical severity.
Methods: 29 patients with torticollis (13 with effective ST) and 14 healthy subjects (HS) participated.
Introduction: This study aims to evaluate the effect of an occupation-focused and occupation-based group intervention for fatigue management on the perception of environment barriers and social participation, and secondarily the impact on quality of life and sleep quality.
Material And Methods: For this quasi-experimental study, 19 participants with a mean age of 45 (13.7), with 84.
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) often causes impairment in working memory (WM), information processing speed (IPS), and verbal memory (VM). These deficits are linked to disrupted neural oscillatory activity. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), which modulates cortical oscillations, may hold promise for treating cognitive impairment in MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlepharospasm (BSP) is a focal dystonia characterized by involuntary, bilateral spasms of the orbicularis oculi muscle. While botulinum toxin (BoNT) is the standard treatment, cognitive tasks such as reading and writing may exert transient modulatory effects on spontaneous blinking and dystonic spasms. This study investigates the potential of cognitive training, including reading and writing tasks, as a complementary therapeutic approach to BoNT in BSP patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Urinary symptoms represent a significant source of distress and disability in multiple sclerosis (MS), but the factors influencing their occurrence and exacerbation remain unclear. Frailty has been proposed as a measure of clinical complexity in MS and has been associated with its main phenotypic manifestations. The present study investigated the relationship between frailty and the presence and burden of urinary symptoms in MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Previous neuroimaging studies indicate complex network alterations in psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) patients, but brain activity modifications occurring during PNES remain unexplored. This study aimed to analyze EEG microstate metrics in PNES patients both during events and resting state to investigate the neurophysiological changes underlying these dissociative events.
Methods: We recruited 22 PNES patients and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.
Clin Neurophysiol
April 2025
In this "centenary" paper, an expert panel revisited Hans Berger's groundbreaking discovery of human restingstate electroencephalographic (rsEEG) alpha rhythms (8-12 Hz) in 1924, his foresight of substantial clinical applications in patients with "senile dementia," and new developments in the field, focusing on Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most prevalent cause of dementia in pathological aging. Clinical guidelines issued in 2024 by the US National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) and the European Neuroscience Societies did not endorse routine use of rsEEG biomarkers in the clinical workup of older adults with cognitive impairment. Nevertheless, the expert panel highlighted decades of research from independent workgroups and different techniques showing consistent evidence that abnormalities in rsEEG delta, theta, and alpha rhythms (< 30 Hz) observed in AD patients correlate with wellestablished AD biomarkers of neuropathology, neurodegeneration, and cognitive decline.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Med Biol
February 2025
. This study introduces the effective electric field () as a novel observable for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) numerical dosimetry.represents the electric field component aligned with the local orientation of cortical and white matter (WM) neuronal elements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: According to the dual syndrome hypothesis, patients with Parkinson disease (PD) with visuospatial deficits are more likely to progress to dementia, compared with patients with a prevalent dysexecutive syndrome. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether early connectivity changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the precuneus (PCun)-which are critical to fronto-executive and visuospatial functions, respectively-can identify distinct cognitive phenotypes in cognitively intact newly diagnosed patients with PD.
Methods: Newly diagnosed, drug-naïve patients with PD (≤2 years from clinical onset) with normal Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), were consecutively enrolled from our Movement Disorders Clinics in Italy.
Mov Disord Clin Pract
February 2025
Background: In Parkinson's Disease (PD), upper limb tremor during walking (TW) is observed and clinical observations suggest it may represent a variant of rest tremor. However, its neurophysiological characteristics remain unexplored.
Objectives: This study compared the neurophysiological features of TW with other PD tremors and tested whether TW arises from reduced ipsilateral arm swing.
Background: Fatigue, depression and slow processing speed are debilitating symptoms in people with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) that significantly impacts on the quality of life. Natalizumab, a disease-modifying treatment, improves clinical symptoms but questions remain about the comparative efficacy between its standard interval dosing (SID) and extended interval dosing (EID) schedules.
Objective: To examine the impact of short term natalizumab dosing schedules-SID versus EID-on the so called "invisible symptoms", specifically focusing on symptom exacerbation during the 'wearing-off' phase before infusion and the subsequent relief post-infusion.
Alzheimer disease (AD) remains a significant global health concern. The progression from preclinical stages to overt dementia has become a crucial point of interest for researchers. This paper reviews the potential of neurophysiological biomarkers in predicting AD progression, based on a systematic literature search following PRISMA guidelines, including 55 studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMotor fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is due to reduced motor cortex (M1) output and altered sensorimotor network (SMN) modulation. Natalizumab, a disease-modifying therapy, reduces neuroinflammation and improves fatigue. However, some patients treated with natalizumab experience fatigue recurrence ('wearing-off') before subsequent infusions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current hypothesis on the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis (MS) suggests the involvement of both inflammatory and neurodegenerative mechanisms. Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs) effectively decrease relapse rates, thus reducing relapse-associated disability in people with MS. In some patients, disability progression, however, is not solely linked to new lesions and clinical relapses but can manifest independently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Transcranial magnetic stimulation-electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) has demonstrated decreased excitability in the primary motor cortex (M1) and increased excitability in the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) in moderate-advanced Parkinson's disease (PD).
Objectives: The aim was to investigate whether these abnormalities are evident from the early stages of the disease, their behavioral correlates, and relationship to cortico-subcortical connections.
Methods: Twenty-eight early, drug-naive (de novo) PD patients and 28 healthy controls (HCs) underwent TMS-EEG to record TMS-evoked potentials (TEPs) from the primary motor cortex (M1) and the pre-SMA, kinematic recording of finger-tapping movements, and a 3T-MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan to obtain diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reconstruction of white matter (WM) tracts connecting M1 to the ventral lateral anterior thalamic nucleus and pre-SMA to the anterior putamen.
Oligomeric alpha-synuclein (α-syn) in saliva and phosphorylated α-syn deposits in the skin have emerged as promising diagnostic biomarkers for Parkinson's disease (PD). This study aimed to assess and compare the diagnostic value of these biomarkers in discriminating between 38 PD patients and 24 healthy subjects (HSs) using easily accessible biological samples. Additionally, the study sought to determine the diagnostic potential of combining these biomarkers and to explore their correlations with clinical features.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeural Regen Res
December 2024
The search for reliable and easily accessible biomarkers in Parkinson's disease is receiving a growing emphasis, to detect neurodegeneration from the prodromal phase and to enforce disease-modifying therapies. Despite the need for non-invasively accessible biomarkers, the majority of the studies have pointed to cerebrospinal fluid or peripheral biopsies biomarkers, which require invasive collection procedures. Saliva represents an easily accessible biofluid and an incredibly wide source of molecular biomarkers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJuvenile myoclonic epilepsy is an idiopathic generalized epilepsy syndrome associated with photosensitivity in approximately 30-40% of cases. Microstates consist of a brief period of time during which the topography of the whole resting-state electroencephalography signal is characterized by a specific configuration. Previous neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies have suggested that Microstate B may represent activity within the visual network.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBotulinum toxin (BoNT) is an effective and safe therapy for the symptomatic treatment of several neurological disturbances. An important line of research has provided numerous pieces of evidence about the mechanisms of action of BoNT in the central nervous system, especially in the context of dystonia and spasticity. However, only a few studies focused on the possible central effects of BoNT in Parkinson's disease (PD).
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