Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry articles from March 2002

Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry archives from March 2002

Movement disorders.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Movement disorders are common. In the majority of patients the diagnosis will be straightforward--for example, idiopathic Parkinson's disease or essential tremor--and in these patients the main issues relate to management. In others...

The management of tremor.
March 1, 2002... Tremor is defined as a rhythmical, involuntary oscillatory movement of a body part (1). The formulation of a clinical diagnosis for an individual's tremor involves two discrete steps (2): * The observed tremor is classified on...

Diagnosis and management of atypical Parkinsonian syndromes.
March 1, 2002... Parkinsonian syndromes are characterised by slowness of initiation (akinesia), movement (bradykinesia), and thought (bradyphrenia), tremor at rest (3-5 Hz) and on posture (4-8 Hz), and extrapyramidal rigidity. It is now recognised that a number...

Odd and unusual movement disorders.
March 1, 2002... The hotch potch of miscellaneous and largely unclassified phenomena which comprise a significant and fascinating part of movement disorders are a challenge for neurologists working on the borderlands of psychiatry, sleep disorders, and...

Medical management of Parkinson's disease.(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... The management of Parkinson's disease has evolved rapidly over the last 10 years with the advent of new drugs, new classes of drug, and the resurgence of interest in surgery. Although there has been a move toward patients being cared for by...

Mind and movement: The neuropsychiatry of movement disorders.
March 1, 2002... The irritating historical division between neurology and psychiatry is at its most arbitrary in the field of movement disorders. All of the major movement disorders (such as Parkinson's disease, idiopathic dystonia, Huntington's disease, and...

Surgery for movement disorders.
March 1, 2002... Since Laitinen's report of pallidotomy for the treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease less than a decade ago, there has been a resurgence of interest in functional neurosurgery for movement disorders. The convergence of several paths,...

Surfing for movement disorders. (World Wide Web).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The two major problems with searching for any information on the internet on movement disorders (or indeed any other subject) are that of "data overload", and finding good quality information that is pitched at the correct level. WEMOVE is...

Relevance of new psychotropic drugs for the neurologist: Clinicians can now select psychotropic agents from a wide choice. (Editorial).(Statistical Data Included)(Editorial)
March 1, 2002... The discovery of neuroleptic and antidepressant drugs about 50 years ago marked a breakthrough in pharmacotherapeutics, which has revolutionised the therapy of many neuropsychiatric conditions. The efficacy of the early and then standard agents...

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: How new is new? (Editorial Commentary).(Editorial)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... If variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is caused by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) it must be a new disease, as human exposure to the BSE agent is unlikely to have happened much before 1983. (1) The study by Hillier et a? (this...

Dystonia in multiple system atrophy: Dystonia is often encountered in untreated MSA. (Editorial Commentary).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this issue (pp 300-303) Boesch et al report on their experience with dystonia in multiple system atrophy (MSA). (1) They correctly point out the relative neglect of dystonia in previous clinical descriptions of patients with MSA. In 1986,...

Genetic effects on human cognition: Lessons from the study of mental retardation syndromes. (Advances in Neuropsychiatry).
March 1, 2002... The molecular basis of human cognition is still poorly understood, but recent advances in finding genetic mutations that result in cognitive impairment may provide insights into the neurobiology of cognitive function. Here we review the...

"Paratrigeminal" paralysis of the oculopupillary sympathetic system. (Nosological Entities?).
March 1, 2002... Raeder described five patients with mixed features of trigeminal nerve pathology and oculosympathetic impairment, with or without other cranial nerve lesions. This constellation of clinical features drew the original author's attention to the...

Dystonia in multiple system atrophy. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objective: To delineate the frequency and nature of dystonia in multiple system atrophy (MSA). Methods: a cohort of 24 patients with clinically probable MSA over the past 10 years were prospectively followed up. Motor features were either...

Possible underascertainment of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: A systematic study. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: To predict the size of the vCJD epidemic it is important to know whether the description of cases of vCJD in 1996 represent the first cases of a new disease entity or whether detection was due to increased surveillance of CJD in...

Cholinesterase inhibitor treatment alters the natural history of Alzheimer's disease. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objective: To describe the effect of cholinesterase inhibitors (CEIs) on the natural course of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: The short and long term effects of CEIs were evaluated in 1 35 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease...

Adaptation of handwriting size under distorted visual feedback in patients with Parkinson's disease and elderly and young controls. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objective: The ability to use visual feedback to control handwriting size was compared in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), elderly people, and young adults to better understand factors playing a part in parkinsonian micrographia. ...

Neurophysiological modulation of the subthalamic nucleus by pallidal stimulation in Parkinson's disease. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: Current models of basal ganglia dysfunction in Parkinson's disease suggest a pivotal role of subthalamic nucleus (STN) hyperactivity. There is a direct excitatory output to the globus pallidus internus (GPi), which in turn...

Evidence of thalamic disinhibition in patients with hemichorea: Semiquantitative analysis using SPECT. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: Hemichorea sometimes occurs after lesions that selectively involve the caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus. Some reports have hypothesised that the loss of subthalamic nucleus control on the internal segment of the globus...

Aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: Outcomes of early rehabilitation after surgical repair of ruptured intracranial aneurysms. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: The aim was to analyse functional and cognitive outcomes in patients receiving early rehabilitation treatment after surgery for aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). Methods: The assessment protocol included all relevant...

Cessation of embolic signals after antithrombotic prevention is related to reduced risk of recurrent arterloembolic transient ischaemic attack and stroke. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: To evaluate the reduction of embolic signals after the initiation of an antithrombotic secondary prevention in patients with recent artericembolic stroke and to determine the predictive value of decreased microembolism on the risk...

Angiotensin converting enzyme insertion/deletion genotype is associated with leukoaraiosis in lacunar syndromes. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: Pathological and clinical data suggest that patients presenting with ischaemic lacunar syndromes may be a heterogenous group. Those with isolated lacunar infarction are thought to have localised atherosclerosis whereas in those with...

Outcome of patients with cryptogenic stroke and patent foramen ovale. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives. The aim was to estimate the recurrence rate and to define subgroups at increased risk for recurrent cerebral ischaemia in patients with patent foramen ovale (PFO) and so called cryptogenic stroke due to paradoxical embolism. ...

Surgical removal of brain stem cavernous malformations: Surgical indications, technical considerations, and results. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: This study was undertaken to review the indications for surgical treatment of brain stem cavernomas and to develop strategies to minimise the complications of surgery. Patients and results: Twelve patients underwent surgical...

Neurological stamp: Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In 1902 Landsteincr, an Austrian born American immunologist, announced one of the major medical discoveries of the century, that of the ABO blood group system. His work permitted successful blood transfusion, and the saving of so many lives. He...

Organisation of the sympathetic skin response in spinal cord injuy. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: The sympathetic skin response (SSR) is a technique to assess the sympathetic cholinergic pathways, and it can be used to study the central sympathetic pathways in spinal card injury (SCI) This study investigated the capacity of the...

Changes in gait and fatigue from morning to afternoon in people with multiple sclerosis. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: The aim was to measure changes in walking patterns and self rated fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) compared with age matched control subjects, from the morning to the afternoon within a single day. Methods:...

Positional down beating nystagmus in 50 patients: cerebellar disorders and possible anterior semicircular canalithiasis. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: To clarify the clinical significance of positional down beat nystagmus (pDBN). Methods: A discussion of the neuro-otological findings in 50 consecutive patients with pDBN. Results: In 38 patients there was evidence of CNS...

Effect of brain tumour laterality on patients' perceived quality of life. (Paper).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Objectives: There is little reliable quantitative information on preoperative quality of life of patients with brain tumours. The aim of this study was to clarify the effect of the volume, location, and histological grade of brain tumours on...

Use of neuronavigation and electrophysiology in surgery of subcortically located lesions in the sensorimotor strip. (Paper).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: Subcortical lesions in the sensorimotor strip are often considered to be inoperable. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of a combined approach for surgery in this region, aided by a robotic neuronavigation...

Notch3 gene polymorphism and ischaemic cerebrovascular disease. (Short Report).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a type of hereditary stroke and dementia. Mare than 90% of patients with CADASIL have mutations in the Notch3 gene. All mutations either...

Changes in third ventricular size with neuroendoscopic third ventriculostomy: A blinded study. (Short Report).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... The objective was to study the relation between changes in cerebral ventricular size and clinical outcome after neuroendoscopic third ventriculostomy (NW) in both primary (no previous surgery) and secondary (previous CSF diversion for...

Sequence analysis of tau in familial and sporadic progressive supranuclear palsy. (Short Report).
March 1, 2002... Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a tau deposition neurodegenerative disorder which usually occurs in sporadic form and is associated with a common variant of the tau gene. Rare familial forms of PSP have been described. Recently familial...

Peripheral facial palsy and dysfunction of the oropharynx. (Short Report).
March 1, 2002... The facial nerve contributes to the oropharyngeal phase of deglutition via the buccinator, perioral, digastricus posterior, and stylohyold muscles. The gustatory and salivatory functions of the facial nerve are also known to contribute to...

Clipping of cerebral aneurysm under hypothermic cardiac arrest and simultaneous coronary artery bypass grafting: Case report. (Short Report).
March 1, 2002... This report describes a case where joint neurological and cardiac surgery teams cooperated to perform simultaneous procedures of clipping a complex internal carotid artery under hypothermic cardiac arrest and coronary artery bypass grafting. A...

A new defect of peroxisomal function involving pristanic acid: A case report. (Short Report).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... AN adult onset novel disorder of peroxisomal function is described, characterised by retinitis pigmentosa resulting in progressive visual failure, learning difficulties, a peripheral neuropathy, and hypogonadism. The defect results in...

Rumination and executive function in depression: An experimental study. (Short Report).
March 1, 2002... Background: Major depression is associated with cognitive deficits, particularly those requiring central executive functioning. Depressed patients also tend to focus on and think about their symptoms and problems ("ruminate") more than...

The Gerstmann syndrome in Alzheimer's disease. (Short Report).(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Background: It remains unclear from lesion studies whether the four signs of the Gerstmann syndrome (finger agnosia, acalculia, agraphia, and right-left confusion) cluster because the neuronal nets that mediate these activities have anatomical...

Volumetric MRI study of the caudate nucleus in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia. (Short Report).
March 1, 2002... Objectives: To determine whether parkinsonian symptoms in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are associated with greater atrophy of the caudate nucleus in comparison with patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). ...

A case of paraneoplastic syndrome accompanied by two types of cancer. (Lesson of the Month).
March 1, 2002... A case of paraneopiastic syndrome accompanied by two types of cancer is reported. The patient was a 62 year old man who progressively developed cerebellar ataxia, especially an abnormal gait. The anti-Hu antibody titre was high. A small tumour...

Multiple cavernous haemangioma showing marked calcification on cranial radiography. (Neurological Picture).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... We report a case of multiple cavernous haemangioma with marked calcification seen on cranial radiography. A 40 year old man with no history of neurological illness experienced a generalised seizure. He showed no signs of inflammation or...

Brain abscess formed in the cavum septi pellucidi. (Neurological Picture).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Cavum septi pellucidi (CSP) is a developmental anomaly, and its pathological significance is unknown. Thc CSP and other ventricies communicate with each other, and CSF enters thc CSP from the third and lateral ventricles, in which CSF is...

Bromide, the first effective antiepileptic agent. (Historical Note).
March 1, 2002... The 2001 issue of the British National Formulary contains many antiepileptic agents listed under some 10 classes of anticonvulsants. Historically there had been no effective new antiepileptic drugs until the introduction of phenobarbitone....

Letters.
March 1, 2002... T cell recognition of a non-protein antigen preparation of Campylobacter jejuni in patients with Guillain-Barre syndrome. J C Cooper S Hughes A Ben-Smith C O S Savage J B Winer Evidence is accumulating that...

Correspondence. (Postscript).
March 1, 2002... Anti-GQ1b IgG antibody syndrome: clinical and immunological range We read with interest the article by Odaka et al. (1) In this article, the authors attempted to establish a nosological relation between Miller Fisher syndrome,...

Multiple Sclerosis: The Guide to Treatment and Management, 5th edition. (Book Reviews).
March 1, 2002... Edited by C H Polman, A J Thompson, T J Murray, et al (Pp 148, [pounds sterling]24.95). Demos Medical Publishing, New York, 2001 ISBN 1 888799 54 4 This book is a welcome addition to the multiple sclerosis literature. It is regularly...

Cognitive Rehabilitation: An Integrative Neuropsychological Approach. (Book Reviews).
March 1, 2002... Edited by M M Sohlberg and C A Maleer (Pp 492, [pounds sterling]41.95). Guilford Press, New York, 2001. ISBN 1572306130 People working in rehabilitation will appreciate this book, which is a follow up to the influential Introduction to...

Clinical Cases in Neurology. (Book Reviews).
March 1, 2002... Edited by A H V Schapira and L P Rowland (pp 261, [pounds sterling]32.50). Butterworth Heinmann, Oxford 2001. ISBN 0 7506 4304 8 Any review of a compendium of case histories must resemble that of a crime novel. How much do you say so as to...

Contemporary Treatments in Neurology. (Book Reviews).
March 1, 2002... Edited by Neil Scolding (Pp 446, [pounds sterling]45.00). Published by Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, 2001. ISBN 0 7506 3918 0 The very fact that this book has been published and runs to 400 pages tells us how far we have come in the past...

Myotonic Dystrophy, 3rd edition: Major problems in neurology series, No 37. (Book Reviews).
March 1, 2002... By Peter S Harper (Pp 436, [pounds sterling]55.00). Published by W B Sounders, London, 2001. ISBN 0 7020 2152 0 This is the third edition of Peter Harper's exemplary monograph, and it has been much awaited. Myotonic dystrophy transcends...