Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry articles from May 2001

Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry archives from May 2001

Progress in inflammatory myopathies: good but not good enough.
May 1, 2001... During the past decade there have been remarkable achievements in the immunopathogenesis of the inflammatory myopathies that laid the grounds for more effective therapeutic interventions. This editorial summarises where we stand today in our...

Systematic review of immunomodulatory drugs for the treatment of people with multiple sclerosis: Is there good quality evidence on effectiveness and cost?(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To review the clinical effectiveness and costs of a range of disease modifying drugs in multiple sclerosis. Drugs included are azathioprine, cladribine, cyclophosphamide, intravenous immunoglobulin, methotrexate, and...

Excitatory and inhibitory corticospinal responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with minor to moderate head injury.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--The changes in excitatory and inhibitory responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as attested by motor evoked potential (MEP) and silent period (SP) parameters, were compared in patients who sustained...

Dementia as a complication of schizophrenia.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Cognitive impairment is known to occur in schizophrenia, and may be marked in institutionalised patients. The aim of this study was to determine whether it ever warrants an additional diagnosis of dementia. ...

Affective-prosodic deficits in schizophrenia: profiles of patients with brain damage and comparison with relation to schizophrenic symptoms.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--Although affective prosody seems to be a dominant and lateralised communication function of the right hemisphere, focal lesions of either hemisphere may cause problems with its modulation. When impairment occurs after...

Kinematic analysis of handwriting movements in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Basal ganglia dysfunction is supposed to play a part in the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A new computer aided technique for the analysis of hand movements, allowing the detection of subtle...

Cluster headache in women: clinical characteristics and comparison with cluster headache in men.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--To study the clinical characteristics of cluster headache in women. Cluster headache is a disorder of men (male to female ratio 6-7:1). Methods--Retrospective chart review to identify all women diagnosed with...

Phenotypic variation of a Thr704Met mutation in skeletal sodium channel gene in a family with paralysis periodica paramyotonica.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Patients with paralysis periodica paramyotonica exhibit a clinical syndrome with characteristics of both hyperkalaemic periodic paralysis and paramyotonia congenita. In several types of periodic paralysis associated...

Both total and phosphorylated tau are increased in Alzheimer's disease.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Backround--Pathological tau protein concentrations in CSF are found in both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), but studies on brain tissue have suggested that the tau pathology in AD differs from that in...

The benefit of an acute stroke unit in patients with intracranial haemorrhage: a controlled trial.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Patients with stroke receiving organised inpatient (stroke unit) care after stroke are more likely to be alive and independent compared with patients offered conventional care. The objective was to determine the effect...

Stance control is not affected by paresis and reflex hyperexcitability: the case of spastic patients.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Spastic patients were studied to understand whether stance unsteadiness is associated with changes in the control of voluntary force, muscle tone, or reflex excitability, rather than to abnormal posture connected to...

Reconsideration of biallelic inactivation of the VHL tumour suppressor gene in hemangioblastomas of the central nervous system.(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Cerebellar haemangioblastoma occurs sporadically or as a component tumour of autosomal dominant von Hippel-Lindau disease. Biallelic inactivation of the VHL tumour suppressor gene, which is located on chromosome 3p,...

The "burden of normality": concepts of adjustment after surgery for seizures.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--To conceptualise the process of adjustment provoked by the sudden alleviation of chronic epilepsy by temporal lobectomy. On being rendered seizure free, the process of adjustment primarily depends on the patient's...

Benzodiazepine receptor quantification in Huntington's disease with [[I.sup.123]]iomazenil and SPECT.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objectives--Increasing evidence suggests that metabolic changes predate neuronal death in Huntington's disease and emission tomography methods (PET and SPECT) have shown changes in glucose consumption and receptor function in...

Clinical phenotype in patients with [alpha]-synuclein Parkinson's disease living in Greece in comparison with patients with sporadic Parkinson's disease.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--An Ala53Thr mutation of the [alpha]-synuclein gene has been recently identified as a rare cause of autosomal Parkinson's disease (PD). The clinical characteristics of 15 patients with PD living in Greece with the...

Immediate and long term outcome after infrathalamic and thalamic lesioning for intractable Tourette's syndrome.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Objective--The surgical treatment of intractable Tourette's syndrome is controversial. Experience with 17 consecutive patients treated between 1970 and 1998 is reviewed and the efficacy and safety of surgical treatment is...

Massive haemorrhagic transformation in cardioembolic stroke: the role of arterial wall trauma and dissection.
May 1, 2001... Abstract The pathogenesis of massive haemorrhagic transformation is not well established. Fatal haemorrhagic transformation associated with in situ dissection after acute middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion in a patient with atrial...

Reversible brain dysfunction in MELAS: MEG, and [H.sup.1] MRS analysis.(mitochondrial encephalopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like syndrome)
May 1, 2001... Abstract This case report describes a follow up investigation of a patient with impaired word discrimination due to mitochondrial encephalopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like syndrome (MELAS) using pro ton magnetic resonance...

Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) and Emil Adolf Von Behring (1854-1917).
May 1, 2001... The German physician, bacteriologist, and chemist Paul Ehrlich shared with Ilya Metchnikoff the Nobel Prize in 1908 for his contributions to immunity. The climax of the 19th century's united attack on microbes was Paul Ehrlich's discovery of...

Effect of experience of severe stroke on subjective valuations of quality of life after stroke.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Previous work suggests that the quality of life associated with severe disability after stroke is rated very poorly by members of the public, often as being worse than death. Other evidence suggests that experience of illness...

Cerebral aneurysms associated with Behcet's disease: a case report.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Cerebral aneurysms in Behcet's disease are very rare. The role of vasculitis in the aetiology of these aneurysms has not been clarified. A 57 year old man with Behcet's disease is described, who had a subarachnoid hemorrhage due...

Axonal polyneuropathy in obstructive sleep apnoea.
May 1, 2001... Abstract Chronic hypoxaemia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a well known risk factor for polyneuropathy but the impact of intermittent hypoxaemia on peripheral nerve function has not been established so far. A case-control...

Ocular contrapulsion in multiple sclerosis: clinical features and pathophysiological mechanisms.
May 1, 2001... Abstract The objective was to describe in multiple sclerosis, a cerebellar eye movement syndrome that resulted from an acute episode of inflammatory demyelination. Contrapulsion is an ocular motor disturbance characterised by a triad of...

Comparative study of preceding Campylobacter jejuni infection in Guillain-Barre syndrome in Japan and The Netherlands.
May 1, 2001... Abstract A comparative study was made in Japan and The Netherlands of the presence of preceding Campylobacter jejuni infections in Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). It was conducted in two laboratories using different serological criteria....

Atypical form of dural graft associated Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: report of a postmortem case with review of the literature.
May 1, 2001... Abstract A postmortem case of an atypical form of dural graft associated Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is described. A 42 year old man developed progressive spastic paresis 163 months after a cadaveric dura mater graft. He presented with...

HISTORICAL NOTE.(history of aphasia)
May 1, 2001... Aphasia and Wernicke's are Sextus Empiricus (about AD 200) is credited [1] with being the first person to use the word "aphasia", albeit in a philosophical sense. Carl Wernicke's studies on aphasia, published from 1874, are among the...

Intravenous hypertrophic Paccioni granulations: differentiation from venous dural thrombosis.
May 1, 2001... Paccioni granulations are normal anatomical structures that correspond to very enlarged arachnoid villi. [1] They are involved in the filtration of CSF from the subarachnoid space to the venous system. Hypertropic Paccioni granulations (hPgs),...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2001... Posterior alexia after right occipitotemporal infarction Posterior or pure alexia is an uncommon acquired reading disturbance in which the loss of the ability to read is not associated with other language deficits. [1] It has been reported...

CORRESPONDENCE.
May 1, 2001... Neurocysticercosis and epilepsy in developing countries I have several comments to make about the article by Pal et al [1] on neurocysticercosis and epilepsy in developing countries. The title should refer to "neurocysticercosis in...

Normal and Pathologic Development of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord.(Review)
May 1, 2001... Normal and pathologic development of the human brain and spinal cord. By MARIA DAMBSKA and KRYSTYNA E WISNIEWSKI (Pp 212, [pound]45.00). Published by John Libbey, London, 1999. ISBN 0 86196 591 4 Recent years have witnessed a considerable...

Multiple Sclerosis.(Review)
May 1, 2001... Multiple sclerosis. By GEORGE D PERKIN and JERRY S WOLINSKY. (Pp 68, [pound]12.00.) Published by Health Press, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 1-899541-28-4 This book is written as part of the Fast Facts series to serve as guides to clinical practice....

The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will.(Review)
May 1, 2001... The Volitional Brain: towards a neuroscience of free will. Edited by: BENJAMIN LIBET, ANTHONY FREEMAN, and KEITH SUTHERLAND (Pp 298, [pound]14.95) Published by Imprint Academic, Exeter, 1999. ISBN 0-907845-11-8 Do we really choose to get...

Neuromuscular Diseases: From Basic Mechanisms to Clinical Management.(Review)
May 1, 2001... Neuromuscular diseases: from basic mechanisms to clinical management. Monographs in clinical neurosciences. Volume 18. Edited by: F DEYMEER (Pp 196, US$164.50). Published by Karger, Basel, 2000 ISBN 3 8055 702 The monographs in clinical...

Botulinum Toxin Type A in Pain Management.(Review)
May 1, 2001... Botulinum toxin type A in pain management. By MARTIN K CHILDERS (Pp 127, US$24.95). Published by Demos Medical Publishing, New York, 1999. ISBN 09663422-2-4 Even when just glancing through this book the reader will be put on guard. There...