Immediate Motor Control Enhancement via Pallidothalamic Tract (PTT) Circuit Ablation: A Dual-Target MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound Approach for Tremor-Dominant Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Stepwise dual-target MR-guided Focused Ultrasound (dtMRgFUS) is a novel treatment for Parkinson's disease (PD), targeting both Ventral Intermediate Nucleus (VIM) and the pallidothalamic tract (PTT). While previous studies have demonstrated its 12-month efficacy, this study focuses on the immediate effects of additional PTT lesioning after VIM ablation.

Methods: Twenty patients (age 69.

Stepwise dual-target magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound in tremor-dominant Parkinson disease: One-year follow-up.

Background And Purpose: Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a nonsurgical treatment for Parkinson disease (PD). Some selected anatomical structures can be targeted by MRgFUS in PD. However, there is no uniform target yet.

Stepwise Dual-Target Magnetic Resonance-Guided Focused Ultrasound in Tremor-Dominant Parkinson Disease: A Feasibility Study.

Background: Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) has been applied successfully in treating refractory tremors in Parkinson disease (PD). It generates a precise thermal ablation in a specific nucleus or tract, such as ventral intermediate nucleus (VIM) or pallidothalamic tract (PTT). Despite a single lesion improving parts of the PD symptoms, the feasibility and efficacy of a stepwise dual-lesion in VIM and PTT are yet to be explored.

Low-Parameter Small Convolutional Neural Network Applied to Functional Medical Imaging of Tc-99m Trodat-1 Brain Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography for Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD), a progressive disease that affects movement, is related to dopaminergic neuron degeneration. Tc-99m Trodat-1 brain (TRODAT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) aids the functional imaging of dopamine transporters and is used for dopaminergic neuron enumeration. Herein, we employed a convolutional neural network to facilitate PD diagnosis through TRODAT SPECT, which is simpler than models such as VGG16 and ResNet50.

Efficiency of an Online Health-Promotion Program in Individuals with At-Risk Mental State during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Mental health issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic greatly impact people's daily lives. Individuals with an at-risk mental state are more vulnerable to mental health issues, and these may lead to onset of full psychotic illnesses. This study aimed to develop and evaluate an online health-promotion program for physical and mental health of the individuals with at-risk mental state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gait-Related Brain Activation During Motor Imagery of Complex and Simple Ambulation in Parkinson's Disease With Freezing of Gait.

Freezing of gait (FOG) in Parkinson's disease (PD) is a devastating clinical phenomenon that has a detrimental impact on patients. It tends to be triggered more often during turning (complex) than during forwarding straight (simple) walking. The neural mechanism underlying this phenomenon remains unclear and requires further elucidation.

Real-world Evaluation of Tolerability, Safety and Efficacy of Rivastigmine Oral Solution in Patients with Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease Dementia.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of titrating dose of rivastigmine oral solution in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Taiwan.

Methods: We recruited 108 mild to moderate AD patients with Rivast (rivastigmine oral solution 2 mg/ml) treatment for 52 weeks. We recorded the demographic characteristics, initial cognition by mini-mental state examination (MMSE), initial global status by clinical dementia rating (CDR) with CDR-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB), initial dose, and titrating dose at each visit.

Low-frequency oscillations in cortical level to help diagnose task-specific dystonia.

Task-specific dystonia is a neurological movement disorder that abnormal contractions of muscles result in the twisting of fixed postures or muscle spasm during specific tasks. Due to the rareness and the pathophysiology of the disease, there is no test to confirm the diagnosis of task-specific dystonia, except comprehensive observations by the experts. Evidence from neural electrophysiological data suggests that enhanced low frequency (4-12 Hz) oscillations in the subcortical structure of the globus pallidus were associated with the pathological abnormalities concerning β and γ rhythms in motor areas and motor cortical network in patients with task-specific dystonia.

Bereitschaftspotential in Multiple System Atrophy.

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a neurodegenerative disorder manifesting as parkinsonism, cerebellar ataxia, and autonomic dysfunction. It is categorized into MSA with predominant parkinsonism (MSA-P) and into MSA with predominant cerebellar ataxia (MSA-C). The pathophysiology of motor control circuitry involvement in MSA subtype is unclear.

The Distribution of Skull Score and Skull Density Ratio in Tremor Patients for MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound Thalamotomy.

Objective: Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a minimum-invasive surgical approach to non-incisionally cause the thermos-coagulation inside the human brain. The skull score (SS) has already been approved as one of the most dominant factors related to a successful MRgFUS treatment. In this study, we first reveal the SS distribution of the tremor patients, and correlate the SS with the image feature from customized skull density ratio (cSDR).

Convergent Associative Motor Cortical Plasticity Induced by Conditional Somatosensory and Motor Reaction Afferents.

: Associative motor cortical plasticity can be non-invasively induced by paired median nerve electric stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary motor cortex (M1). This study investigates whether a simultaneous motor reaction of the other hand advances the associative plasticity in M1. : Twenty-four right-handed subjects received conventional paired associative stimulation (PAS) and PAS with simultaneous motor reaction (PASmr) with at least a 1-week interval.

Changes in Balance, Gait and Electroencephalography Oscillations after Robot-Assisted Gait Training: An Exploratory Study in People with Chronic Stroke.

Robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) systems offer the advantages of standard rehabilitation and provide precise and quantifiable control of therapy. We examined the clinical outcome of RAGT and analyzed the correlations between gait analysis data and event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) in patients with chronic stroke. We applied the Berg balance scale (BBS) and analyzed gait parameters and the ERD and ERS of self-paced voluntary leg movements performed by patients with chronic stroke before and after undergoing RAGT.

Impairments in face discrimination and emotion recognition are related to aging and cognitive dysfunctions in Parkinson's disease with dementia.

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) suffer from motor and non-motor symptoms; 40% would develop dementia (PD-D). Impaired face and emotion processing in PD has been reported; however, the deficits of face processing in PD-D remain unclear. We investigated three essential aspects of face processing capacity in PD-D, and the associations between cognitive, neuropsychiatric assessments and task performances.

Improving Automatic Tremor and Movement Motor Disorder Severity Assessment for Parkinson's Disease with Deep Joint Training.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most severe and common disease globally. PD induces motor system impairment causing symptoms such as shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement, body tremor and difficulty with walking. Clinically, accurately and objectively assessing the severity of PD symptoms is critical in controlling appropriate dosage of Levodopa to prevent unwanted side effect of switching between Dyskinesia and PD.

Event-Related Desynchronization/Synchronization in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is an autosomal dominant, cerebellar degeneration predominant disease caused by excessive CAG repeats. We examined event-related dysynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) in patients with SCA3. We assessed ERD/ERS of self-paced voluntary hand movements in 15 patients with genetically proven SCA3 in comparison with healthy controls.

Peripheral trauma and risk of dystonia: What are the evidences and potential co-risk factors from a population insurance database?

Background: Dystonia is a neurological syndrome typically resulting in abnormal postures.

Objectives: We tested the role of physical injury as potential risk factor for development of dystonia using The National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan.

Methods: We identified 65704 people who were coded in the database as having had peripheral traumatic injuries (ICD-9-CM 807-848 and 860-959) in the year 2000.

Paired Associative Electroacupuncture and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Humans.

Pairing transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with specific stimulus-intervals induces associative motor plasticity at the primary motor cortex (M1). Electroacupuncture (EA) is an established medical technique in the eastern countries. This study investigates whether EA paired with TMS induces distinct M1 motor plasticity.

Delineating cerebellar mechanisms in DYT11 myoclonus-dystonia.

Background: Recent research has highlighted the role of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of myoclonus-dystonia syndrome as a result of mutations in the ɛ-sarcoglycan gene (DYT11). Specifically, a cerebellar-dependent saccadic adaptation task is dramatically impaired in this patient group.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate whether saccadic deficits coexist with impairments of limb adaptation to provide a potential mechanism linking cerebellar dysfunction to the movement disorder within symptomatic body regions.

Cervical dystonia: Normal auditory mismatch negativity and abnormal somatosensory mismatch negativity.

Objective: Previous electrophysiological and psychophysical tests have suggested that somatosensory integration is abnormal in dystonia. Here, we hypothesised that this abnormality could relate to a more general deficit in pre-attentive error/deviant detection in patients with dystonia. We therefore tested patients with dystonia and healthy subjects using a mismatch negativity paradigm (MMN), where evoked potentials generated in response to a standard repeated stimulus are subtracted from the responses to a rare "odd ball" stimulus.

Multispecies probiotics combination prevents ovalbumin-induced airway hyperreactivity in mice.

Background: Probiotics could be beneficial to health and some of them have shown to modulate immune responses.

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate if the probiotic strains including Lactobacillus and Pediococcus strains are able to alleviate allergic reactions in an ovalbumin-induced airway allergy model.

Methods: Lactobacillus multi-species preparation (LMP) was gavaged to BALB/c for total six weeks and BALB/c was challenged with ovalbumin in the last two weeks.

Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Patients With Tinnitus: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.

Objectives: Subjective tinnitus is a phantom sensation experienced without any external source of sound that profoundly impacts the quality of life. Some investigations have claimed that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) reduces tinnitus, but studies on tDCS have demonstrated variable results. This meta-analysis aimed to examine the effect of tDCS on patients with tinnitus.

Impaired Cerebellum to Primary Motor Cortex Associative Plasticity in Parkinson's Disease and Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3.

Background: Functional perturbation of the cerebellum (CB)-motor cortex (M1) interactions may underlie pathophysiology of movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3). Recently, M1 motor excitability can be bidirectionally modulated in young subjects by corticocortical paired associative stimulation (PAS) on CB and contralateral M1 with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), probably through the cerebello-dentato-thalamo-cortical (CDTC) circuit. In this study, we investigated the CB to M1-associative plasticity in healthy elderly PD and SCA3.

Colonic diverticular disease: A new risk factor for Parkinson's disease?

Background: Colonic diverticular disease is a chronic gastrointestinal disorder. Previous studies have suggested that chronic gastrointestinal tract is involved in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease.

Object: This study investigated the potential link between colonic diverticular disease and risk of Parkinson's disease.

Investigation of Motor Cortical Plasticity and Corticospinal Tract Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Patients with Parkinsons Disease and Essential Tremor.

Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) are characterized with motor dysfunctions. Motor circuit dysfunctions can be complementarily investigated by paired associative stimulation (PAS)-induced long-term potentiation (LTP)-like plasticity and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the corticospinal tract (CST). Three groups of twelve subjects with moderate severity PD, ET with intention tremor and healthy controls (HC) were studied.