[Anticonvulsant add-on therapy with Eslicarbazepine acetate : Results of the EPOS-study in adults in Germany]. / Antikonvulsive Zusatztherapie mit Eslicarbazepinacetat : Ergebnisse der EPOS-Studie bei Erwachsenen in Deutschland.

BACKGROUND: Due to inadequate seizure control achieved with antiepileptic drug (AED) monotherapy and the considerable side effects at high required doses, patients with partial-onset seizures (POS) often require AED combination therapy. Eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) is licensed as an add-on therapy for POS and has a favorable tolerability profile. OBJECTIVES: To investigate retention, utilization, reported efficacy, safety and tolerability as well as effects on health-related quality of life using ESL as an add-on treatment to an established monotherapy in a real-world adult population with POS in Germany. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A subgroup analysis was performed on the data derived from the German study sites that had participated in an international, non-interventional, open-label study conducted in eight European countries (eslicarbazepine acetate in partial-onset seizures, EPOS). Adult patients with POS whose physician had decided to prescribe add-on treatment with ESL to an established monotherapy were followed over a total period of approximately six months (three visits: baseline and after periods of approximately three and six months). Data collection included patient retention, reported efficacy, safety and tolerability as well as quality of life (QOLIE-10). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The subgroup analysis included 104 patients which had been enrolled at 38 German study sites. After 6 months, retention of ESL add-on therapy was 86.5 %, with 44.7 % of patients reporting seizure freedom over the 3 months prior to this visit. The overall tolerability of ESL add-on therapy was favorable: 32 adverse events (AE) were reported in 20 patients (19.2 %), while only two events in two patients were considered serious. No new safety signals were detected.

Cancer stem cells in melanoma.

The identification of cancer stem cells in various malignancies led to the hypothesis that these cells have the exclusive ability of self-renewal, contribute to the plasticity of the tumours and may be the cause for ineffective cancer therapies. Several markers of melanoma stem cells have been described in recent studies including CD133, CD166, Nestin and BMI-1. Further studies are necessary to identify, better define and understand the origin and function of cancer stem cells. If confirmed that cancer stem cells play an important role in malignancy, therapeutic strategies may need to be redirected towards these cells to circumvent the failure of conventional therapies.

Improving speed and accuracy of brain-computer interfaces using readiness potential features.

To enhance human interaction with machines, research interest is growing to develop a 'brain-computer interface', which allows communication of a human with a machine only by use of brain signals. So far, the applicability of such an interface is strongly limited by low bit-transfer rates, slow response times and long training sessions for the subject. The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface (BBCI) project is guided by the idea to train a computer by advanced machine learning techniques both to improve classification performance and to reduce the need of subject training. In this paper we present two directions in which brain-computer interfacing can be enhanced by exploiting the lateralized readiness potential: (1) for establishing a rapid response BCI system that can predict the laterality of upcoming finger movements before EMG onset even in time critical contexts, and (2) to improve information transfer rates in the common BCI approach relying on imagined limb movements.

Differential recruitment of high frequency wavelets (600 Hz) and primary cortical response (N20) in human median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials.

Human median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials contain a burst of high-frequency (600 Hz) wavelets superimposed on the primary cortical response (N20). These presumably reflect highly-synchronized repetitive thalamic and/or intracortical population spike bursts and are diminished in non-REM sleep with N20 persisting. Here the burst/N20 relation in awake subjects was examined by using eight different intensities of electric median nerve stimuli. In all subjects the amplitude recruitment of both N20 and burst could be modeled adequately as a sigmoidal function of stimulus intensity. While 8/10 subjects showed a parallel recruitment, 2/10 subjects required significantly higher stimulation intensities for burst than for N20 recruitment. This dampened burst recruitment possibly reflects slight vigilance fluctuations in open-eyed awake subjects; a further increase of burst thresholds could explain the burst attenuation when entering shallow sleep.