Minor hallucinations reflect early gray matter loss and predict subjective cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Well-structured hallucinations in Parkinson's disease (PD) are associated with poor prognosis and dementia. However, the predictive value of minor psychotic phenomena in cognitive deterioration is not well known. Cross-sectional studies have shown that PD patients with minor hallucinations have more severe cortical atrophy than non-hallucinators, but baseline and longitudinal studies addressing the evolution of these brain differences are lacking. The impact of developing minor hallucinations on cognitive impairment and cortical atrophy progression in early PD was explored. METHODS: One hundred and thirty-one de novo PD patients from the Parkinson's Progression Marker Initiative for whom brain magnetic resonance imaging scans were available were included. Cognitive outcome at 5 years was compared between patients with and without minor hallucinations during follow-up. Additionally, using gray matter volume (GMV) voxel-based morphometry, cross-sectional (at baseline) and longitudinal (1- and 2-year GMV loss) structural brain differences between groups were studied. RESULTS: During follow-up, 35.1% of patients developed minor hallucinations. At 5 years, these patients showed an increased prevalence of subjective cognitive decline compared to non-hallucinators (44.1% vs. 13.9%; p < 0.001), but not formal cognitive impairment. Additionally, compared to non-hallucinators, they exhibited reduced GMV at baseline in visuoperceptive areas and increased GMV loss in left temporal areas (p < 0.05 corrected). CONCLUSIONS: Minor hallucinations seem to be an early clinical marker of increased neurodegeneration and are associated with mid-term subjective cognitive decline. Longer follow-up analyses would be needed to further define if these findings could reflect a higher risk of future cognitive deterioration.

Measuring impulsivity in Parkinson's disease: a correlational and structural neuroimaging study using different tests.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Impulsivity is an aspect of personality and a major component of multiple neuropsychiatric conditions. In Parkinson's disease, it has been associated with the expression of impulse control disorders, a highly prevalent non-motor complication. Even though multiple tests of impulsivity have been used in this context, the impact of test choice has not been addressed. The aim was to evaluate whether different impulsivity measures in Parkinson's disease share substantial inter-scale and anatomical correlations or rather mirror different underlying phenomena. METHODS: In a consecutive sample of 89 Parkinson's disease patients without impulse control disorders, four common tests were evaluated assessing different aspects of impulsivity: impulsiveness trait, decisions under implicit risk with and without losses, and delay discounting. Correlations among test scores were analysed and each score was used as a regressor in a set of grey matter volume (GMV) voxel-based morphometry analyses to explore their brain structural correlates. RESULTS: No significant correlations were found between the different impulsivity tests. Furthermore, their structural brain correlates were divergent. Impulsiveness trait appeared to be associated with lower GMV in dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortices, implicit risk (with losses) with higher GMV in the left nucleus accumbens and lower left insular GMV, implicit risk (without losses) with higher GMV in the left lingual gyrus and lower GMV in the gyri recti and delay discounting with higher GMV in the left nucleus accumbens. CONCLUSIONS: In Parkinson's disease, different impulsivity measures reflect very dissimilar behavioural and brain structural correlates. Our results suggest that parkinsonian impulsivity is not a unitary phenomenon but rather a heterogeneous entity.

Widespread Increased Diffusivity Reveals Early Cortical Degeneration in Huntington Disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Huntington disease is a devastating genetic neurodegenerative disorder for which no effective treatment is yet available. Although progressive striatal atrophy is its pathologic hallmark, concomitant cortical deterioration is assumed to occur, but it is poorly characterized. Our objective was to study the loss of cortical integrity and its association with clinical indicators throughout the course of the disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a cohort of 39 patients with Huntington disease and 25 controls with available MR imaging (T1WI and DTI), we compared cortical atrophy and intracortical diffusivity across disease stages. Intracortical diffusivity is a DTI-derived metric that has recently been suggested to detect incipient neuronal death because water can diffuse more freely in cortical regions with reduced neural density. RESULTS: We observed progressive thinning and increasing diffusivity within the cerebral cortex of patients with Huntington disease (P < .05, corrected for multiple comparisons). Most important, in the absence of pronounced atrophy, widespread increased diffusivity was already present in individuals with premanifest Huntington disease, correlating, in turn, with clinical and disease-specific progression markers. CONCLUSIONS: Intracortical diffusivity may be more sensitive than cortical thinning for tracking early neurodegeneration in Huntington disease. Moreover, our findings provide further evidence of an early cortical compromise in Huntington disease, which contributes to our understanding of its clinical phenotype and could have important therapeutic implications.

Neurocardiovascular pathology in pre-manifest and early-stage Huntington's disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Cardiovascular events are a major cause of early death in the Huntington's disease (HD) population. Dysautonomia as well as deterioration of circadian rhythms can be detected early in the disease progression and can have profound effects on cardiac health. The aim of the present study was to determine if patients with HD and pre-manifest mutation carriers present a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than non-mutation-carrying controls. METHODS: This was a prospective, cross-sectional, multicentre study of 38 HD mutation carriers (23 pre-manifest and 15 early-stage patients) compared with 38 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Clinical and epidemiological variables, including the main haematological vascular risk factors, were recorded. Ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) measurement were performed to assess autonomic function and as target-organ damage markers. RESULTS: Most (63.2%) patients with HD (86.7% and 47.8%, respectively, of the early-stage and pre-manifest patients) were non-dippers compared with 23.7% of controls (P = 0.001). CIMT values were in the 75th percentile in 46.7% and 43.5%, respectively, of the early-stage and pre-manifest patients, whereas none of the controls presented pathological values (P = 0.001 and P = 0.006, respectively). Nocturnal non-dipping was significantly associated with CIMT values in patients (P = 0.002) but not in controls. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that higher cardiovascular risks and target-organ damage are present even in pre-manifest patients. Although larger studies are needed to confirm these findings, clinicians should consider these results in the cardiovascular management of patients with HD.

Effect of self-esteem on social interactions during the Ultimatum Game.

Self-esteem is an attitude formed by self-evaluation based on positive and negative aspects of oneself. Low self-esteem is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders and is especially associated with social difficulties. Recently, behavioral economics has allowed the quantitative study of social interactions. We investigated the association between self-esteem and interpersonal problems and whether self-esteem modulates behavior and emotions during an economic task, the Ultimatum Game (UG). In this task participants accept or reject fair/unfair monetary offers from others. Low (LSE, n=40) and high (HSE, n=45) self-esteem participants were assessed in their interpersonal problems and psychiatric symptoms using self-reported questionnaires, and were compared on their decision making and emotional response during the UG. LSE was associated with depression and anxiety symptoms. In addition, LSE was associated with interpersonal problems, especially in the domains of socially inhibited, nonassertive, overly accommodating, self-sacrificing and cold/distant. During the UG, LSE women reported more anger towards unfair offers than HSE women. Our findings suggest that low self-esteem individuals experience high distress by interpersonal problems in several domains. Importantly, low self-esteem in women seems to be associated with an accentuated emotional response to unfair social exchanges. These results may contribute to treat social difficulties in this population.

Telling true from false: cannabis users show increased susceptibility to false memories.

Previous studies on the neurocognitive impact of cannabis use have found working and declarative memory deficits that tend to normalize with abstinence. An unexplored aspect of cognitive function in chronic cannabis users is the ability to distinguish between veridical and illusory memories, a crucial aspect of reality monitoring that relies on adequate memory function and cognitive control. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that abstinent cannabis users have an increased susceptibility to false memories, failing to identify lure stimuli as events that never occurred. In addition to impaired performance, cannabis users display reduced activation in areas associated with memory processing within the lateral and medial temporal lobe (MTL), and in parietal and frontal brain regions involved in attention and performance monitoring. Furthermore, cannabis consumption was inversely correlated with MTL activity, suggesting that the drug is especially detrimental to the episodic aspects of memory. These findings indicate that cannabis users have an increased susceptibility to memory distortions even when abstinent and drug-free, suggesting a long-lasting compromise of memory and cognitive control mechanisms involved in reality monitoring.

Short-lasting episodes of prosopagnosia in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND: Prosopagnosia, the selective inability to recognize known faces, has been described in Alzheimer's disease and fronto-temporal dementia but is not expected to occur in Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS AND RESULTS: We report three PD patients who developed recurrent, paroxysmal and short-lasting episodes of prosopagnosia, before progressing to PD dementia (PDD). Hallucinations and other higher-order visual deficits - such as optic ataxia and micro/macropsia - were also seen. CONCLUSION: Progressive signs of temporal and parietal dysfunction have been suggested to herald dementia in PD. The observation of prosopagnosia and other higher-order visuoperceptive defects in the transition to dementia, reinforce the importance of posterior-cortical deficit in PD.

Anal cytology in patients with AIDS.

The objective of the present study was to study the prevalence of abnormal anal cytology in patients with AIDS. Anal smears, obtained with a cytobrush, of 102 HIV-positive patients of the Emilio Ribas Institute (Sao Paulo, Brazil) were collected, and only after that, the patients were submitted to anoscopy. Thirty-two patients had LSIL and 14 others had HSIL. Squamous intra-epithelial lesions were also observed in 38% of the patients without condyloma (18/47): in 9 of the 33 patients without history of condyloma (27%) and in 9 of the 14 patients who had previously treated condyloma (64%). An invasive squamous cell carcinoma was observed in one patient without history of condyloma. In all 13 patients with HSIL, biopsies guided by high resolution anoscopy confirmed high grade dysplasia. Our findings suggest that anal cytology is mandatory in AIDS even in patients without macroscopic anal lesions or without previous history of anal condyloma.

[Surgical procedures in selected proctological patients with local anesthesia. Study of 150 cases]. / Procedimentos cirúrgicos em pa cientes proctológicos selecionados, sob anestesia local. Estudo de 150 casos.

Experience in the treatment of 150 patients with anorectal disorders and disorders of the sacrococcygeal region who were operated on with local anesthesia at the University Hospital, ABC Medical School, São Bernardo do Campo, SP, Brazil, from March 1995 to March 1998. The anesthesia technique, the operations carried out and the tolerance to the procedure are reported. Intraoperative morbidity was 10.6% (16 patients), and postoperative morbidity was 6% (nine patients). The age of patients was between 15 and 92 years old, with mean age 42 years old; 58% of patients were male and 42% female. Surgical mean time was 45 minutes and the patients remained in the hospital for a mean time of 8 hours. All of patients was instructed about the anesthesia technique, their advantages and disadvantages, and only with their permit the surgery was programmed. Hospitalization was required in five patients (3.3%). The anesthesia technique employed was the same for all patients. Upon survey, 96.7% of the patients stated they did not feel pain during the surgery and that they would go through the procedure again. The authors conclude the surgical treatment of anorectal disorders and disorders of the sacrococcygeal region with local anesthesia is viable and safe, and in addition, is well accepted by the patients.

Management of idiopathic ulcer of the anal canal by excision in HIV-positive patients.

PURPOSE: The aim of this article is to show our results from the surgical treatment of idiopathic anal ulcers. METHODS: We present 33 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and idiopathic perianal ulcers. They presented with anal pain that failed to improve with medical treatment. Evaluation under anesthesia typically showed an irregular ulcer in the anal canal and an intersphincteric abscess. Surgical treatment consisted of an incision around the ulcer, its excision including margins but not its base, and abscess drainage. RESULTS: All patients experienced significant immediate postoperative pain relief. Biopsies of the ulcer showed chronic inflammation, and no specific agents appeared in cultures. CONCLUSIONS: These lesions seem to have the same cryptogenic origin as perianal abscesses, and we recommend surgical treatment to provide symptom relief.

[Prolonged use of intrauterine devices]. / Uso prolongado de dispositivos intrauterinos.

PIP: Analysis was done on 70 cases of regularly controlled use of an IUD for 4 years or more. No distinction was made among devices used. 64.2% of the sample had used an IUD from 4 to 5 years, 20% from 5 to 6 years and 15.8% for more than 6. 37% of the sample was between 20-29 years of age, 58.5% between 30-39, and 4.2% over 40. All had more than 2 children and 74.1% had had at least 1 abortion; 12.8% had had between 4-6 abortions. 85.7% were considered to have normal menstrual periods; 8.5% experienced menorrhagia, 2.8% hypermenorrhagia, and 2.8% metrorrhagia. 92.8% had no inflammatory complications. There was 1 case of endometriosis, 3 of adnexitis, and 1 of parametriosis, all of which responded favorably to antibiotics without necessitating removal of the device. Laboratory studies revealed that 50% of the sample had cervicitis. It is concuded that menstrual disorders and genital inflammations need not, if properly treated, be reasons for removal of the device, and further, that with adequate controls IUDs are suitable for long-term use.^ieng