purpose : to evaluate the effects of memantine on improving visual function in patients with acute nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (naion) methods : this was a prospective, double masked, randomized, clinical trial. the study involved 47 subjects with unilateral naion of less than 8 weeks duration. eligible patients were randomly allocated to take either memantine tablets (5 mg ...

purpose : evaluation of efficacy of memantine (n-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonist) on visual function of patients with acute non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy (naion). methods : the study was conducted as interventional case series from november 2005 through november 2006 in farabi eye hospital . twenty-two patients with acute naion of less than 8 weeks duration entered the study. m...

In this study, we investigated corticospinal excitability during mental simulation of a leg extension movement with the technique of transcranial magnetic stimulation. Motor evoked potentials were recorded in both knee extensors (quadriceps) and flexors (biceps femoris) in 19 trained participants (healthy volunteers). The amplitude and latency of motor evoked potentials were compared in three c...

Cervical somatosensory evoked potentials elicited by median nerve stimulation were recorded from 18 cases of hereditary spastic paraplegia. Motor and sensory nerve conduction in the median nerve was normal in each. In one third of the patients no spinal evoked potential was detectable. In the remainder the amplitude of the evoked potential was reduced in comparison with a control series; the la...

Motor learning is reflected in changes to the brain's functional organization as a result of experience. We show here that these changes are not limited to motor areas of the brain and indeed that motor learning also changes sensory systems. We test for plasticity in sensory systems using somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). A robotic device is used to elicit somatosensory inputs by displaci...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is associated with altered cortical excitability. The relevance of this to the need for non-invasive ventilation is not known. We assessed the diaphragm response to transcranial magnetic stimulation in terms of motor threshold and latency as well as assessing intracortical excitability using paired stimulation in eight long-term users and six non-users of h...

Tactile information is actively acquired and processed in the brain through concerted interactions between movement and sensation. Somatosensory input is often the result of self-generated movement during the active touch of objects, and conversely, sensory information is used to refine motor control. There must therefore be important interactions between sensory and motor pathways, which we ch...

PURPOSE We aimed to investigate white matter diffusivity abnormalities in hereditary spastic paraplegia with thin corpus callosum (HSP-TCC) patients in relation with electrophysiological findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging were performed on four HSP-TCC patients and 15 age-matched healthy subjects. Voxel-wise statistical analysis...