Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry articles from November 2002

Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry archives from November 2002

Neutralising antibodies to interferon beta during the treatment of multiple sclerosis: the significance of the generation of antibodies in response to interferon beta administration is discussed. (Editorial: Neutralising Antibodies).
November 1, 2002... Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) receiving interferon beta may develop neutralising anti-interferon beta antibodies (NABs) during treatment. These NABs are clinically relevant and reduce the clinical efficacy of interferon beta. Although...

Surgical treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy: it is important that presurgical evaluation of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy is carried out by multidisciplinary teams. (Editorial Commentaries: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy).
November 1, 2002... The paper published in this issue by Jutila et al (this issue, pp 486-94) adds to the literature regarding surgical treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy. (1) This paper presents results from a national centre for adults in Finland. The strength...

Hippocampal atrophy and neocortical dysfunction in early Alzheimer's disease: is there a relationship between medial temporal lobe atrophy and brain dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease? (Editorial Commentaries: Alzheimer's Disease).
November 1, 2002... Although it would appear straightforward that neuronal loss in and by itself explains the cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD), things are considerably more complicated as shown by Garrido et al (this issue pp 508-16). (1) In this...

Meaningful treatment outcomes in Alzheimer's disease: Goal Attainment Scaling allows for problems identified by patients and carers to be the focus of treatment. (Editorial Commentaries: Alzheimer's Disease).
November 1, 2002... The explosion of interest in clinical trials for the treatment of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease has resulted in an industry developing instruments, which assess the disorder and the changes that can occur as a result of interventions. (1)...

Cortical bricks and mortar: the cortical microanatomy of cells in retinotopic regions may determine the geometry of hallucinations. (Editorial Commentaries: Charles Bonnet Hallucinations).
November 1, 2002... ... il voit les Batiments s'elever sous ses yeux et lui offrir toutes les Parties qui entrent dans leur Construction exterieure. (1) Charles Bonnet's visually impaired grandfather, although remembered (through the eponymous syndrome) for...

Joint position sense and vibration sense: anatomical organisation and assessment. (Physical Signs).
November 1, 2002... Clinical examination of joint position sense and vibration sense can provide important information concerning specific cutaneous sensory receptors, peripheral nerves, dorsal roots, and central nervous system pathways and should be included as a...

Bilateral hemispheric alteration of memory processes in right medial temporal lobe epilepsy. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to investigate right medial temporal lobe epilepsy (RTLE) effects on verbal memory. Methods: BOLD fMRI data were collected from seven right sided MTLE patients (RTLE) and compared with the data...

Long term outcome of temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: analyses of 140 consecutive patients. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To analyse the long term results of temporal lobe epilepsy surgery in a national epilepsy surgery centre for adults, and to evaluate preoperative factors predicting a good postoperative outcome on long term follow up. Methods:...

Chronic alcohol use and first symptomatic epileptic seizures. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To establish whether chronic alcoholism and alcohol consumption are risk factors for developing a first symptomatic epileptic seizure. Methods: Multicentre case-control study of 293 patients (160 men, 133 women) with a first...

Goal setting and attainment in Alzheimer's disease patients treated with donepezil. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To understand the treatment goals of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, carers, and physicians; to estimate whether clinically important goals are met during treatment with donepezil; and to compare a measure of goal attainment with...

Relation between medial temporal atrophy and functional brain activity during memory processing in Alzheimer's disease: a combined MRI and SPECT study. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To investigate the relation between atrophy of the hippocampal region and brain functional patterns during episodic memory processing in Alzheimer's disease. Patients and methods: Whole brain structural magnetic resonance...

Differentiating multiple system atrophy from Parkinson's disease: contribution of striatal and midbrain MRI volumetry and multi-tracer PET imaging. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: The differential diagnosis between typical idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and the striatonigral variant of multiple system atrophy (MSA-P) is often difficult because of the presence of signs and symptoms common to both forms of...

Cognitive slowing in Parkinson's disease resolves after practice. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To assess the effect of dopaminergic repletion on working memory in Parkinson's disease. Methods: The role of dopaminergic state on working memory in patients with Parkinson's disease was determined using the Steinberg item...

How valid is the clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in the community? (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Background: Many patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease are later found to have an erroneous diagnosis, often only when they come to necropsy; conversely, many patients with Parkinson's disease in the community remain undiagnosed. ...

Footprints of coagulopathy. (Neurological Picture).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... A 68 year old man with chronic atrial fibrillation and a St Jude valve in mitral position discontinued warfarin several days prior to a coronary angiogram. Forty eight hours after restarting his warfarin, while also on low molecular weight...

The neural basis of Charles Bonnet hallucinations: a hypothesis. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To describe the hallucinations occurring as a result of a macular hole in each eye and to investigate the neural basis. Methods: Psychophysical observations including sketches of the hallucinations calibrated for size. ...

Head injury outcome prediction in the emergency department: a role for protein S-100B? (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Background: Biochemical markers released after head injury may reflect the degree of brain damage, which is related to subsequent disability. If the serum level of a marker were found to be related to outcome, then earlier identification and...

Prevalence of adults with brain arteriovenous malformations: a community based study in Scotland using capture-recapture analysis. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To conduct a population based study of brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) prevalence. Methods: Multiple, overlapping sources of case ascertainment were used to establish the point prevalence of brain AVMs in the adult...

Intracranial cerebrospinal fluid measurement studies in suspected idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus, secondary normal pressure hydrocephalus, and brain atrophy. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To investigate intracranial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) distribution in patients with a clinical diagnosis of idiopathic normal pressure hydracephalus (INPH). Methods: 24 patients with a clinical diagnosis of INPH were studied....

Glial fibrillary acidic protein in late life major depressive disorder: an immunocytochemical study. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: Depression is a common psychiatric disorder in late life. Cerebrovascular disease has been postulated as an important aetiological factor in many cases (the "vascular depression" hypothesis). Consistent with this, an inflammatory...

Electrophysiological evidence for a defect in the processing of temporal sound patterns in multiple sclerosis. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To assess the processing of spectrotemporal sound patterns in multiple sclerosis by using auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) to complex harmonic tones. Methods: 22 patients with definite multiple sclerosis but mild disability...

Central motor conduction in patients with anti-ganglioside antibody associated neuropathy syndromes and hyperreflexia. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: Several serum antibodies against gangliosides are diagnostically important, particularly in Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS), and multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). Although hyperreflexia is an atypical...

Lateralised motor control: hemispheric damage and the loss of deftness. (Paper).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To learn if the left compared with the right hemisphere of right handed subjects exerts bilateral compared with contralateral motor control when performing precise and coordinated finger movements. Methods: The study investigated...

Are functional motor and sensory symptoms really more frequent on the left? A systematic review. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To test the hypothesis that unilateral motor and sensory symptoms unexplained by identifiable disease are more common on the left side of the body than the right. Methods: Systematic review of the literature published since...

Relative high frequency of the c.255de1A parkin gene mutation in Spanish patients with autosomal recessive parkinsonism. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... Background: Autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with mutations in the parkin gene. Objectives: To search for the presence of parkin gene mutations in Spanish patients with Parkinson's disease...

Peripheral mechanisms in tremor after traumatic neck injury. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... Tremor is a rare manifestation after neck injury, and its physiological mechanism has not been elucidated. We studied the effects of torque loading and ischaemic nerve block on coarse postural tremor in the right upper extremity, which had...

Unilateral globus pallidus internus stimulation improves delayed onset post-traumatic cervical dystonia with an ipsilateral focal basal ganglia lesion. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... Treatment with unilateral left globus pallidus internus (GPi) deep brain stimulation is reported in a patient with severe delayed onset post-traumatic cervical dystonia. He had sustained severe head trauma at the age of 17 and had developed a...

Endovascular coiling versus neurosurgical clipping in patients with a ruptured basilar tip aneurysm. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To compare endovascular coiling with neurosurgical clipping of ruptured basilar bifurcation aneurysms. Methods: Patient and aneurysm characteristics, procedural complications, and clinical and anatomical results were compared...

Non-invasive assessment of extracranial--intracranial bypass grafts using advanced ultrasound technology. (Short Report).
November 1, 2002... There have been significant developments in ultrasound technology in the last few years which have resulted in an increase in the clinical value of this technique. An illustrative case is presented of how ultrasound technology has been used in...

Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939). (Neurological Stamp).(Biography)
November 1, 2002... Sir William Macewen (1848-1924) of Glasgow was the first practitioner of modern neurosurgery, but he didn't devote the majority of his time and energy to this field. In 1888 he published his report on 21 operations with 18 recoveries, thus...

Letters.
November 1, 2002... Irregular presence of abnormal prion protein in appendix in variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease We have investigated the presence of disease related prion protein ([PrP.sup.Sc]) in appendix samples obtained at necropsy from four...

Correspondence.
November 1, 2002... Dysport produces intrinsically more swallowing problems than Botox: unexpected results from a conversion factor study in cervical dystonia Defining a conversion ratio between Botox and Dysport mouse Units to compare their therapeutic...

Clinicians guide to sleep medicine. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Edited by N J Douglas [Pp 242, [pounds sterling]29.99). Published by Edward Arnold Publishers, London, 2002. ISBN: 0340 742054 As the preface to this book states, the last 30 years has seen a rapid growth in the awareness of sleep...

Panayiotopoulos syndrome, a common and benign childhood epileptic syndrome. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Edited by C P Panayiotopoulos (Pp 158, 345.00). Published by John Libbey, Eastleigh, 2002. ISBN 0 86196 619 8 Dr Panayiotopoulos has written this monograph cum swan song about the syndrome that he has put on the diagnostic map and to which...

Neuropsychological interventions, clinical research and practice. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Edited by Paul J Eslinger. (Pp 254, [pounds sterling]38.00]. Published by Guilford Press, New York, 2002. ISBN 1-57230-744-7 As the editor of this book says, at one time those who reported psychometric testing data in relationship to a...

Neuronavigation and neuroanatomy. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Edited by Wolfgang Seeger, Josef Zwntner (Pp 419, EUR 248). Published by Springer-Verlag, New York, 2002. ISBN 3 211 83741 8 The increasing use of frameless neuronavigation constantly poses new challenges to neurosurgeons. Its aim is to...

Magnetic resonance imaging in dementia. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... By J Valk, F Barkhof and P Scheltens (Pp 353; [pounds sterling]129.50). Published by Springer, Heidelberg, 2002. ISBN 3 540 41731 1 This lavishly illustrated book provides a lucid and up to date account of magnetic resonance in the...

Mosby's color atlas and text of Neurology, 2nd edition. (Book Review).(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Edited by G D Perkin (Pp 324, [pounds sterling]28.95). Published by Elsevier Science, London, 2002. ISBN 0 7234 3208 2 There are now too many neurology textbooks available with little to choose between them. Hardly a publishing house does...