Sabina Telecká

Repetitive transcranial stimulation for freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease.

Repetitive Transcranial Stimulation for Freezing of Gait in Parkinsons Disease: the authors did not find any effect of rTMS applied over the motor cortex and/or DLPFC for freezing of gait in PD

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: a possible target for modulating dyskinesias in Parkinson's disease by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation

We studied whether five sessions of 10 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS treatment) applied over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) or the primary motor cortex (MC) in advanced Parkinsons disease (PD) patients would have any effect on L-dopa-induced dyskinesias and cortical excitability. We aimed at a randomised, controlled study. Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation, and the Unified Parkinsons Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS parts III and IV) were performed prior to, immediately after, and one week after an appropriate rTMS treatment. Stimulation of the left DLPFC induced a significant motor cortex depression and a trend towards the improvement of L-dopa-induced dyskinesias.

Impairment of brain vessels may contribute to mortality in patients with Parkinson's disease.

The effect of brain‐vessel pathology on mortality in 57 consecutive PD patients was studied.

The posterior medial cortex is involved in visual but not in verbal memory encoding processing: an intracerebral recording study

The objective is to study the involvement of the posterior medial cortex (PMC) in encoding and retrieval by visual and auditory memory processing. Intracerebral recordings were studied in two epilepsy-surgery candidates with depth electrodes implanted in the retrosplenial cingulate, precuneus, cuneus, lingual gyrus and hippocampus. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERP) evoked by visual and auditory memory encoding–retrieval tasks. In the hippocampus, ERP were elicited in the encoding and retrieval phases in the two modalities. In the PMC, ERP were recorded in both the encoding and the retrieval visual tasks; in the auditory modality, they were recorded in the retrieval task, but not in the encoding task. In conclusion, the PMC is modality dependent in memory processing. ERP is elicited by memory retrieval, but it is not elicited by auditory encoding memory processing in the PMC. The PMC appears to be involved not only in higher-order top-down cognitive activities but also in more basic, rather than bottom-up activities.

ID 88 – Anterior thalamus in cognition: An intracerebral recording study

Objective To study the involvement of the anterior thalamic nuclei (ANT) in the cognitive processes. Methods We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) by visual and auditory memory encoding-recognition tasks by intracerebral recordings in patients with pharmacoresistent epilepsy who underwent the deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery of the anterior thalamic nuclei with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the ANT. We compared the results with epilepsy-surgery candidates with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the hippocampus. Results In the ANT we recorded ERPs during the visual encoding and visual and auditory recognition tasks. No significant ERPs were recorded during the encoding phase by auditory stimuli in ANT. In hippocampus ERPs were recorded by visual and auditory memory encoding and recognition tasks. In the recognition tasks (visual and auditory) the ERPs in ANT preceded the ERPs in hippocampus. Conclusions ERPs are elicited by visual memory encoding and recognition, as well as by auditory recognition memory processes, but not by encoding auditory memory processing in the ANT. The ANT precedes the hippocampus in the memory recognition pathway. Key message ANT has a specific role in the memory processes, especially the memory recognition.