We assessed visual processing related to navigational impairment in Alzheimer's disease hypothesizing that visual motion evoked responses to optic flow simulating observer self-movement would be linked to navigational performance. Mild Alzheimer's disease and older adult control subjects underwent open-field navigational testing, visual motion perceptual threshold determination and a battery of...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether fascicular neurotomy has long-lasting effects on spasticity. DESIGN We present 4 clinical cases and a critical analysis of the literature. PATIENTS This is a retrospective study on 4 patients referred to our department for spastic equinovarus foot deformity. For all 4, neurotomy was successful not long after surgery, but spasticity reappeared after a few month...

OBJECTIVE The incidence of spinal treatment, including nerve block, radiofrequency neurotomy, instrumented fusions, is increasing, and progressively involves patients of age 65 and older. Treatment of the geriatric patients is often a difficult challenge for the spine surgeon. General health, sociofamilial and mental condition of the patients as well as the treatment techniques and postoperativ...

The purpose of the present study was to assess the clinical efficacy of radiofrequency (RF) cervical zygapophyseal joint neurotomy in patients with cervicogenic headache. A total of thirty consecutive patients suffering from chronic cervicogenic headaches for longer than 6 months and showing a pain relief by greater than 50% from diagnostic/prognostic blocks were included in the study. These pa...

Expression of Nogo protein was investigated in the optic pathway of embryonic mice by using isoform-specific antibodies Bianca and 11C7, which recognize Nogo-A/B and Nogo-A, respectively. Our previous reports from using antibody N18 have shown that Nogo is localized on the radial glia in the retina and at the midline of the ventral diencephalon in mouse embryos during the ingrowth of retinal ga...

Optic flow-large-field rotational and radial motion-is processed as efficiently as translational motion for first-order (luminance-defined) stimuli. However, it has been suggested recently that the same pattern does not hold for second-order (e.g. contrast-defined) stimuli. We used random dot kinematogram (RDK) stimuli to determine whether global processing of optic flow is as efficient as proc...

In multiple sclerosis, microstructural damage of normal-appearing brain tissue is an important feature of its pathology. Understanding these mechanisms is vital to help develop neuroprotective strategies. The visual pathway is a key model to study mechanisms of damage and recovery in demyelination. Anterograde trans-synaptic degeneration across the lateral geniculate nuclei has been suggested a...

Radial glia in the developing optic tectum express the key guidance molecules responsible for topographic targeting of retinal axons. However, the extent to which the radial glia are themselves influenced by retinal inputs and visual experience remains unknown. Using multiphoton live imaging of radial glia in the optic tectum of intact Xenopus laevis tadpoles in conjunction with manipulations o...

OBJECTIVE To quantitatively evaluate the effect of motor nerve branch block and neurotomy of the soleus nerve on triceps surae spasticity, reviewing 2 cases. METHODS Beside clinical assessment, we carried out a quantitative measurement of the stiffness of the ankle flexor muscles. The path length of the phase diagram between elastic and viscous stiffness quantifies the reflex response to move...

PURPOSE Patients with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) and cone-rod dystrophy (CRD) have central vision loss; but CRD damages the retinal photoreceptor layer, and LHON damages the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) layer. Using diffusion MRI, we measured how these two types of retinal damage affect the optic tract (ganglion cell axons) and optic radiation (geniculo-striate axons). METHODS Ad...