Current Journal of Neurology
Year:2015 | Volume:14 | Issue:2|Papers Count:11

Background: An important role for oxidative stress, as a consequence of epileptic seizures, has been suggested. Coriandrum sativum has been shown that have antioxidant effects. Central nervous system depressant effects of C. sativum have also been reported. In this study, the effects of hydroalcoholic extract of aerial parts of the plants on brain tissues oxidative damages following seizures induced by pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) was investigated in rats. Methods: The rats were divided into five groups and treated: (1) Control (saline), (2) PTZ (90 mg/kg, i. p. ), (3-5) three doses (100, 500 and 1000 mg/kg of C. sativum extract (CSE) before PTZ. Latencies to the first minimal clonic seizures (MCS) and the first generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) were recorded. The cortical and hippocampal tissues were then removed for biochemical measurements. Results: The extract significantly increased the MCS and GTCS latencies (P < 0. 01, P < 0. 001) following PTZ-induced seizures. The malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in both cortical and hippocampal tissues of PTZ group were significantly higher than those of the control animals (P < 0. 001). Pretreatment with the extract prevented elevation of the MDA levels (P < 0. 010– P < 0. 001). Following PTZ administration, a significant reduction in total thiol groups was observed in both cortical and hippocampal tissues (P < 0. 050). Pretreatment with the 500 mg/kg of the extract caused a significant prevention of decreased in total thiol concentration in the cortical tissues (P < 0. 010). Conclusion: The present study showed that the hydroalcoholic extract of the aerial parts of C. sativum possess significant antioxidant and anticonvulsant activities.

Background: The aim of this preliminary study was to assess the safety and efficacy of high-dose oral vitamin D3 supplementation during pregnancy in women with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Isfahan, Iran. Methods: In a single center open-label randomized, controlled clinical Phase I/II pilot study, 15 pregnant women with confirmed MS with low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels were randomly allocated to receive either 50, 000 IU/week vitamin D3 or routine care from 12 to 16 weeks of gestation till delivery. The main outcome measures were mean change in serum 25(OH)D levels, expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score, and number of relapse events during pregnancy and within 6 months after delivery. Results: Average serum 25(OH)D level at the end of trial in vitamin D3 supplemented group was higher than routine care group (33. 7 ng/mL vs. 14. 6 ng/ml, P < 0. 050). In vitamin D3 group, the mean EDSS did not changed 6 months after delivery (P > 0. 050), whereas in routine care group, the mean EDSS increased from 1. 3 (0. 4) to 1. 7 (0. 6) (P < 0. 070). Women in vitamin D3 group appeared to have fewer relapse events during pregnancy and within 6 months after delivery. No significant adverse events occurred. Conclusion: Adding high dose vitamin D3 supplementation during pregnancy to routine care of women with MS had significant effect on the serum 25(OH)D levels, EDSS and number of relapse events during pregnancy and within 6 months after delivery.

Background: Migraine is a chronic disease that affects nearly 6% of men and 18% of women worldwide. There are various drugs, which can successfully decrease migraine symptoms and frequency of migraine attacks, but these drugs usually are expensive. Hence, this study aimed to assess the effects of pyridoxine supplementation on severity, frequency and duration of migraine attacks as well as headache diary results (HDR). Methods: This double-blind randomized clinical trial study was conducted on 66 patients with migraine with aura (MA) in Khorshid and Emam Mosa Sadr clinics of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in 2013. Patients were randomly allocated to receive either pyridoxine supplements (80 mg pyridoxine per day) or placebo. Severity, frequency and duration of migraine attacks and HDR were measured at baseline and at the end of the study. Results: Mean age of patients was 34. 24 ± 9. 44 years old. Pyridoxine supplementation led to a significant decrease in headache severity (− 2. 20 ± 1. 70 compared with − 1 ± 1. 50; P = 0. 007), attacks duration (− 8. 30 ± 12. 60 compared with − 1. 70 ± 9. 60; P = 0. 030) and HDR (− 89. 70 ± 134. 60 compared with − 6. 10 ± 155. 50; P = 0. 040) compared with placebo, but was not effective on the frequency of migraine attacks (− 2. 30 ± 4 compared with − 1. 20 ± 7. 80; P = 0. 510). Conclusion: Pyridoxine supplementation in patients with MA was effective on headache severity, attacks duration and HDR, but did not affect the frequency of migraine attacks.

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, neuro-inflammatory disease of central nervous system affecting physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects of patients. Association of vitamin D deficiency and MS has been shown in previous studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum vitamin D level in MS cases and their sex-matched healthy siblings (who are genetically near similar) and non-relative sex-matched healthy controls. Methods: A total of 135 subjects enrolled in this casecontrol study. Group one (n = 45) consisted of patients with established MS. Group two (n = 45) included sexmatched healthy siblings of the group one and group three participants (n = 45) were non-relative sexmatched healthy controls. Demographic data (age, sex), level of education, daily sun exposure duration, and month of birth gathered for all. Serum sample of all participants was collected for 25-hydroxy vitamin D measurement. Results: There was no significant difference between vitamin D level, sun exposure duration, education level, and season of birth in three evaluated groups. Mean vitamin D level was 8. 2 ± 10. 1 (nmol/l) in women and 13. 3 ± 7 (nmol/l) in men (P = 0. 001). There was a significant positive correlation between daily sun exposure duration and vitamin D level in whole participants (r = 0. 28, P < 0. 001) as well as in MS patients (r = 0. 32, P = 0. 030). Mean vitamin D level was significantly lower in participants who have born in spring and summer. Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency is high among Iranian population as well as MS patients.

Background: Non motor symptoms (NMS) of idiopathic Parkinson’ s disease (PD) are a major cause of disability and recognition of these symptoms and treatment is important for comprehensive health care. Deep brain stimulation of bilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) has been shown to improve motor symptoms in PD and effects on NMS are unknown. To investigate the NMS among PD patients who underwent STN DBS. Methods: We recruited prospectively 56 patients with PD, who had undergone bilateral STN DBS and 53 age and duration of illness matched PD patients on dopaminergic therapy (controls). NMS were assessed using 30 item questionnaire NMS Quest. These questions evaluated 9 domains, gastrointestinal, urinary, cardiovascular, sexual, cognition (apathy/attention/memory), anxiety/depression, hallucinations/delusions, sleep and miscellaneous. Comparison was done on individual symptoms as well as in various domains. This study was carried at Nizam’ s Institution of Medical Sciences and study period was from January 2011 to December 2012. Results: Patients who underwent STN DBS had a significantly lower mean total score on NMS quest (6. 7 ± 3. 8) compared to controls (8. 4 ± 3. 7) (P < 0. 00100). Symptoms in the domains of cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, sleep were significantly less frequent while sexual disturbances were significantly more frequent among patients compared to controls. On individual symptom analysis, nocturia (P < 0. 00010), unexplained pains (P < 0. 00010), nausea and vomiting, constipation, lightheadedness, depression, and insomnia were less prevalent, while sexual disturbances were significantly more common in STN DBS group compared to controls. Conclusion: Bilateral STN DBS not only improves the motor symptoms but also improves many NMS in PD patients.

Background: The aim was to assess the reliability and the validity of the translated version of the stroke specific quality of life (SS-QOL) questionnaire in Iranian post-stroke patients. Methods: This project was performed at the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran, between 12 April 2010 and 24 February 2011. The English version of the SS-QOL was translated into Persian by “ forward-backward” translation, cognitive inquiring and cultural adaptation process. The reliability and internal consistency were measured by Cronbach’ s alpha coefficient. Validity was assessed using convergent and divergent validity through Spearman’ s correlation coefficient. Results: Our study included 117 post-stroke patients, consisting of 57 (48. 7%) men and 60 (51. 3%) women. The mean age of the patients was 81. 60 ± 7. 52 (range 60-88) years. The Persian version of the SS-QOL proved reliable (Cronbach’ s α = 0. 96). Internal consistency was excellent for both demographic and patients’ clinical characteristics (Cronbach’ s α ≥ 0. 70). The scaling success rates were 100% for convergent validity of each scale. Divergent validity for all 12 scales was considered acceptable, whereas each scale had a 100% scaling success rate for convergent validity. Conclusion: The Persian version of SS-QOL should be mentioned as a noteworthy instrument to specify different aspects of health related QOL of patients suffering stroke and hence that clinicians, researchers and epidemiologist can exploit it trustfully.

Background: The Mississippi Aphasia Screening Test (MAST) is a brief screening test for assessing the expressive and receptive language abilities in patients with aphasia. The objective of the study was to develop and validate the Persian version of the MAST (MASTp) as a screening test for language disorders in patients with post-stroke aphasia. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design to cross-culturally adapt the MASTp following the guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaptation of measures. A total of 40 subjects (20 patients with post-stroke aphasia and 20 healthy subjects) were included. The MASTp was tested for floor or ceiling effects, internal consistency reliability, intra-rater reliability, discriminative validity, and factor structure. Results: There were no floor or ceiling effects for MASTp total score. The MASTp yielded values for internal consistency reliability that were not adequate (Cronbach’ s alpha 0. 64 and 0. 66 for test and retest, respectively. The intra-rater reliability of the MASTp within a 7 day-interval was excellent for total score (ICC agreement = 0. 96) and both expressive index (ICC = 0. 95) and receptive index (ICC agreement = 0. 98). here were statistically significant differences in MASTp total scores and both indexes between patients and healthy subjects suggesting the discriminative validity of the MASTp (P < 0. 001). Factor analysis revealed a 3-factor solution, which jointly accounted for 72. 06% of the total variance. Additional factor analysis suggested 6-item MASTp as a unidimensional measure. Conclusion: The MASTp is useful as a valid and reliable screening tool for evaluation of language abilities in Persian speaking patients with aphasia after stroke.

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is a rapidly progressive fatal prion disease. The proposed diagnostic criteria1, 2 are not sufficiently helpful for diagnosis in early stages of the disorder...

Moyamoya disease is a cerebrovascular disorder with unknown cause characterized by the occlusion of the bilateral internal carotid arteries (ICA) and proximal segments of ICA. 1, 2 On the other hand, moyamoya syndrome (MMS) is a rare form of this condition with underlying several pathologies including hematologic disorders, congenital syndromes, vascular malformations or vasculitis after irradiation, infections, and head trauma.

Lhermitte-Duclos disease (LDD) is a rare pathologic condition, which was first described in 1920 by Giorgianni et al. 1 This is a slowly growing tumor of the cerebellum, composed of granule Purkinje and glia cells. It evolves in a disorganized fashion and the cerebellum loses its normal architecture with no clear plane from normally structured cerebellar tissue. 2-5 We report a case of a young woman with hydrocephalus and cerebellar symptoms caused by a rare occurrence of dysplastic Gangliocytoma arising within the left cerebellar hemisphere and vermis...

A 26-year-old male patient was admitted to our outpatient clinic with complaints of numbness and weakness in his left arm and leg. These complaints had started about 10 days ago and were continuing. From his personal history, it was found out that he had been followed up with the diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) hypermobile tip for 10 years, and that he had had low vision in his left eye lasting for 15 days, but he had not consulted a physician for this complaint.