Background
Apathy is the commonest psychiatric manifestation in Huntington’s disease (HD). We investigated negative psychiatric symptoms—as determined by the Scale for the Assessment of Negative ...Psychiatric Symptoms (SANS)—in early and intermediate HD patients, hypothesizing that such symptoms would be prominent and constitute a more comprehensive and clinically relevant assessment than apathy alone. We also assessed relations between negative symptoms and disease stage, mood, motor, and cognitive disturbances.
Methods
Thirty-five stage 1 and twenty-nine stage 2 consecutive adult HD outpatients were administered SANS; the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Psychiatric Symptoms (SAPS); the motor section of the Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS); Total Functional Capacity (TFC); and instruments to assess cognition, anxiety, and depression.
Results
The groups had similar age, education, and CAG length. Scores on the Hamilton depression and anxiety scales, and SAPS were similar. Negative symptoms were pervasive in the entire series. Illness duration, UHDRS, TFC, cognition, and SANS scores were significantly worse in stage 2. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and SAPS scores were significantly (multiple regression) associated with SANS score, while Hamilton depression and UHDRS scores were not. SANS score was also associated with stage after removing the cognition-related domains of alogia and attention.
Conclusions
Negative symptoms are pervasive in HD but more severe in stage 2. The associations of SANS with MMSE and SAPS suggest impaired cognition and thinking as important in generating negative symptoms. SANS appears useful for revealing a wide range of negative symptoms in HD.
Background
Parkinsonian syndromes may rarely occur in motor neuron disease (MND). However, previous studies are heterogeneous and mostly case reports or small case series. Therefore, we aimed to ...identify and characterize patients with concurrent parkinsonian syndromes extracted from a cohort of 1,042 consecutive cases diagnosed with MND at a tertiary Italian Center.
Methods
Diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS) was made according to current criteria. Clinical characterization included: upper and lower motor neuron disease features, typical and atypical parkinsonian features, oculomotor disorders, cognitive testing, MRI features, and, when available molecular neuroimaging. Genetic testing was carried out for major MND and PD-associated genes.
Results
Parkinsonian syndromes were diagnosed in 18/1042 (1.7%) of MND patients (7 PD, 6 PSP, 3 CBS, 2 other parkinsonisms). Based on phenotype, patients could be categorized into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-parkinsonism and primary lateral sclerosis (PLS)-parkinsonism clusters. Across the whole database, parkinsonism was significantly more common in PLS than in other MND phenotypes (12.1 vs. 1.1%,
p
= 5.0 × 10
−10
). MND patients with parkinsonian features had older age of onset, higher frequency of oculomotor disorders, cognitive impairment, and family history of parkinsonism or dementia. Two patients showed pathogenic mutations in
TARDBP
and
C9orf72
genes.
Conclusion
Specific patterns in MND-parkinsonism were observed, with PLS patients often showing atypical parkinsonian syndromes and ALS patients more frequently showing typical PD. Systematic clinical, genetic, and neuropathologic characterization may provide a better understanding of these phenotypes.
Alexander disease (AxD) is a rare, autosomal dominant neurological disorder. Three clinical subtypes are distinguished based on age at onset: infantile (0–2 years), juvenile (2–13 years), and adult ...(>13 years). The three forms differ in symptoms and prognosis. Rapid neurological decline with a fatal course characterizes the early-onset forms, while symptoms are milder and survival is longer in the adult forms. Currently, the sole known cause of AxD is mutations in the
GFAP
gene, which encodes a type III intermediate filament protein that is predominantly expressed in astrocytes. A wide spectrum of
GFAP
mutations comprising point mutations, small insertions, and deletions is associated with the disease. The genotype-phenotype correlation remains unclear. The considerable heterogeneity in severity of disease among individuals carrying identical mutations suggests that other genetic or environmental factors probably modify age at onset or progression of AxD. Describing new cases is therefore important for establishing reliable genotype-phenotype correlations and revealing environmental factors able to modify age at onset or progression of AxD. We report the case of a 54-year-old Caucasian woman, previously diagnosed with ovarian cancer and treated with surgery and chemotherapy, who developed dysarthria, ataxia, and spastic tetraparesis involving mainly the left side. Cerebral and spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a peculiar tadpole-like atrophy of the brainstem. Genetic analysis of the
GFAP
gene detected a heterozygous mutation in exon 1 (c.219G>C), resulting in an amino acid exchange from methionine to isoleucine at codon 73 (p.M73I). The expression of this mutant
in vitro
affected the formation of the intermediate filament network. Thus, we have identified a new
GFAP
mutation in a patient with an adult form of AxD.
The role of the cerebellum in cognition, both in healthy subjects and in patients with cerebellar diseases, is debated. Neuropsychological studies in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1) and type 2 ...(SCA2) demonstrated impairments in executive functions, verbal memory, and visuospatial performances, but prospective evaluations are not available. Our aims were to assess progression of cognitive and psychiatric functions in patients with SCA1 and SCA2 in a longitudinal study. We evaluated at baseline 20 patients with SCA1, 22 patients with SCA2 and 17 matched controls. Two subgroups of patients (9 SCA1, 11 SCA2) were re-evaluated after 2 years. We tested cognitive functions (Mini Mental State Examination, digit span, Corsi span, verbal memory, attentional matrices, modified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Raven Progressive Matrices, Benton test, phonemic and semantic fluency), psychiatric status (Scales for Assessment of Negative and Positive Symptoms, Hamilton Depression and Anxiety Scales), neurological conditions (Scale for Assessment and Rating of Ataxia), and functional abilities (Unified Huntington Disease Rating Scale–part IV). At baseline, SCA1 and SCA2 patients had significant deficits compared to controls, mainly in executive functions (phonemic and semantic fluencies, attentional matrices); SCA2 showed further impairment in visuospatial and visuoperceptive tests (Raven matrices, Benton test, Corsi span). Both SCA groups had higher depression and negative symptoms, particularly apathy, compared to controls. After 2 years, motor and functional disability worsened, while only attentive performances deteriorated in SCA2. This longitudinal study showed dissociation in progression of motor disability and cognitive impairment, suggesting that in SCA1 and SCA2 motor and cognitive functions might be involved with different progression rates.
Posterior reversible leukoencephalopathy (PRLE) is a neurological disorder caused by a variety of pathological conditions such as high doses or long-term low-doses of immunosuppressive therapy. PRLE ...associated with methotrexate (MTX) is well known but it was rarely observed in adult patients submitted to long-term low-dose administration via the oral route. Here we report the case of a patient affected by psoriasis, treated by chronic oral low-dose of MTX, who presented with limb ideomotor apraxia. Magnetic resonance (MRI) of the brain showed, on T2-weighted images, a diffuse hyperintensity involving bilaterally the white matter of the occipital, parietal and frontal lobes. MTX treatment was stopped and, at the 6-month follow-up, the neuropsychological performances was improved. Two years later, the neuropsychological profile was normal and MRI showed a regression of the white matter abnormalities.
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