Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) are a group of autoimmune-mediated demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system. A growing number of studies have identified asymptomatic lesions on imaging in patients with NMOSD, including asymptomatic optic neuropathy, asymptomatic spinal lesions, and asymptomatic brain lesions, even in the absence of clinical symptoms. The characteristics of asymptomatic lesions of NMOSD, influencing factors, relationship with relapse and disability progression, and management strategies were reviewed in this article.

Objective:To explore whether sleep quality suffers in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease(AD)and mild cognitive impairment(MCI), and to further investigate the correlation between sleep disorders and cognitive function in these patients.Methods:In this study, 30 mild AD patients, 39 MCI patients and 43 demographically matched healthy controls were enrolled.Sleep quality was assessed by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index(PSQI), and cognitive function was assessed by the mini-mental state examination(MMSE), the Montreal cognitive assessment(MoCA)and a set of neuropsychological scales.The correlation of sleep quality with cognitive function was analyzed for the three groups.Results:Differences were significant in sleep time score[0.0(1.0), 1.0(2.0) vs.1.0(1.0), F=8.18, P=0.02]and daytime function score[1.0(1.0), 1.0(1.0) vs.0.0(1.0), F=8.73, P=0.01]between mild AD, MCI and health control groups.Spearman correlation analysis suggested that scores of sleep disorders were negatively correlated with DSB( r=-0.43, P=0.02)and scores of daytime function were positively correlated with ADL( r=0.39, P=0.03)in patients with mild AD.In addition, scores of sleep quality were negatively correlated with the DSB score( r=-0.40, P=0.01), scores of sleep disorders were positively correlated with ADL( r=0.45, P<0.01), scores of daytime function were negatively correlated with DSF( r=-0.42, P=0.01), DSB( r=-0.62, P<0.01)and VFT-S( r=-0.33, P=0.04), and the total PSQI score was negatively correlated with DSF( r=-0.45, P=0.01)and DSB( r=-0.44, P=0.01)in the MCI group. Conclusions:Patients with mild AD and MCI have longer sleep time and impaired daytime function than healthy people, and sleep quality is correlated with memory, attention and daily living ability in patients with mild AD and MCI.

Spinal cord infarction is a rare type of central nervous system ischemic disease. Previous studies have mainly been based on a small number of clinical case reports and retrospective analyses. Its causes are diverse, mainly including vasogenic, systemic and iatrogenic diseases. Spinal cord infarction is mostly acute onset, and its clinical manifestation depends on the infarct location and infarct size, and is usually diagnosed based on combined MRI and other examinations. At present, there is no unified treatment plan for spinal cord infarction, and the mortality and disability are relatively higher. This article reviews the clinical characteristics of spinal cord infarction, and provides help for clinical decision making.

Objective To investigate the abnormality of cerebral laterality of the three attentional networks (alerting, orienting, executive control) in patients with bipolar depression disorder. Methods Patients with bipolar depression disorder (n=28) and healthy controls (n=40) were selected. Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT) was used to explore the efficiency of the networks in bilateral cerebral hemisphere. Results In the response time (RT), there was a significant interaction between groups and hemispheres in orienting network (F=4.67, P=0.03). The result of post hoc test indicated that the RT in the orienting function was significantly longer in the left hemisphere than in the right in control group (t=-4.47, P＜0.05). There was no significant difference in the orienting network between the left and right hemisphere in patients with the depressive bipolar disorder. Conclusion Attention is impaired in patients with depressive bipolar disorder in which the disappearance of left hemisphere advantage of orienting network is the main manifestation of attention impairments.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the neuroprotective effects of Ginkgolide B (GB) against ischemic stroke-induced injury in vivo and in vitro, and further explore the possible mechanisms concerned. METHODS: Transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO) mice and oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R)-treated N2a cells were used to explore the neuroprotective effects of GB. The expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was detected via Western blot and qRT-PCR. RESULTS: GB treatment (4 mg/kg, i. p., bid) significantly reduced neurological deficits, water content, and cerebral infarct volume in tMCAO mice. GB also significantly increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio, reduced the expression of caspase-3, and protected against OGD/R-induced neuronal apoptosis. Meanwhile, GB caused the up-regulation of BDNF protein in vivo and in vitro. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that GB might protect the brain against ischemic insult partly via modulating BDNF expression.
Animals ; Apoptosis ; Blotting, Western ; Brain ; Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor* ; Caspase 3 ; In Vitro Techniques ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; Mice ; Neurons ; Neuroprotective Agents ; Stroke* ; Up-Regulation ; Water

Objective To observe microstructural changes of white matter in Alzheimer's disease (AD),and to find out the relationship between white matters lesion and declined cognition.Methods Twenty-four AD patients and 24 controls with normal cognition performed diffusion tensor imaging MR scan.Tract-based spatial statistical analysis (TBSS) was used to investigate microstructural change of white matter,and then its correlation with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores was analyzed.Results Fractional anisotropy (FA) values were decreased in corpus callosum,fornix,left corticospinal tract,bilateral cerebral peduncle,superior cerebellar peduncle,internal capsule,corona radiata,posterior thalamic radiation,sagittal stratum including inferior longitidinal fasciculus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus,external capsule,cingulate gyrns,hippocampus,superior longitudinal fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus,while mean diffusivity (MD) values were increased in fornix,left hippocampus,bilateral internal capsule,corona radiata,posterior thalamic radiation,sagittal stratum including inferior longitidinal fasciculus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus,external capsule,cingulate gyrus,superior longitudinal fasciculus,superior fronto-occipital fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus (all P ＜ 0.05,threshold-free cluster enhancement corrected).MMSE scores had a positive correlation with decreased FA values of left sagittal stratum (r =0.535,P =0.007) and negative correlations with increased MD values of left sagittal stratum (r =-0.427,P =0.037),left superior longitudinal fasciculus (r =-0.424,P =0.039) and left uncinate fasciculus (r =-0.505,P =0.012).Conclusions There exist widespread white matter lesions in AD with impairment of white matter connections of intra-and inter-hemispheres.Impaired white matters in left hemisphere may have close relationships with cognition decline.

Objective To explore the biological motion perception in Parkinson's disease (PD).Methods 45 individuals with idiopathic PD were compared with 45 matched healthy controls (HCs) using a duration discrimination task.Results The point of subjective equality(PSE) was negative value (-0.27±0.17) for health controls (HCs),and there was significant difference compared with PSE =0 by one sample t test (t=10.96,P＜ 0.01).Compared with HCs,the PSE for PD patients (-0.14±0.30) significantly decreased (t=2.63,P=0.01).When further dividing PD into early stages (stage 1-2) and late stages (stage 3-4),significant difference was found between late-stage PD patients(0.02±0.39)and HCs (t=4.07,P=0.008),but not between early-stage PD patients (-0.24±0.14) and HCs (t=0.84,P=0.405).Conclusion There is biological motion perception disorder in PD patients and it is related to the severity of PD.

Objective To explore neglect dyslexia in unilateral spatial neglect patients,the error type and whether there exists word length and semantic effect.Methods Ten left spatial neglect patients were investigated by Chinese characters reading material.Results Unilateral spatial patients showed neglect dyslexia (202 neglect errors,94.0％ of the total 215 errors) when reading.The most common errors were omissions (148 errors,73.3％ of the total 202 neglect errors),followed by substitutions and additions.The error rate of two words was 9.9％ ± 8.4％,while the rate of three words was 18.8％ ± 16.2％.Performance was worse with the increase of word length (T =-55,P ＜ 0.05).The error rate of words was 8.3％ ± 7.5％,while the rate of non-words was 18.9％ ± 16.6％,and the rate of non-words was worse than that of words (T =-55,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions Our study has shown that omissions are the most common error type of neglect dyslexia in Chinese unilateral spatial neglect patients,and the impairment include word length effect.The patients with unilateral spatial neglect show preserved semantic processing in the neglect side.

Objective To investigate the characteristics and plausible mechanisms of attention network impairments in hyperthyroid patients.Methods 34 hypertyroid patients and 33 normal controls performed the attention network test (ANT),which was used for assessing three components of attentional networks including alerting,orienting,and executive control.Results The mean scores for alerting and orienting networks were significantly shorter (P ＜ 0.01) in hyperthyroid patients (respectively,(20.00 ± 22.47) ms,(35.26 ± 22.65) ms)than those in normal controls (respectively,(35.70 ± 17.62) ms,(50.61 ± 23.66) ms).The mean reaction time for executive control network was significantly longer(P ＜ 0.01) in hyperthyroid patients((116.71 ± 40.36)ms)than those in controls ((93.00 ± 29.34)ms).Triiodothyronine(T3) and thyroxine(T4) were positively correlated with the scores for executive control network (respectively,r=0.350,P＜ 0.05; r=0.417,P＜ 0.05) in hyperthyroid patients,whereas no relationship was found between thyroid stimulating hormone(TSH) and the value of executive control network.T3,T4 and TSH were not correlated with the value of alerting and orienting network in hyperthyroid patients.Conclusion Hypertyroid patients have extensive impairments in various kinds of attentional network,rather than a specific deficit.The recession of executive control network accompanies with enhancement of serum levels of T3,T4 in hyperthyroid patients.

ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of expressional chimeric faces on the attentional bias in unilateral spatial neglect (USN) patients.Methods12 USN patients and 30 matched healthy controls (HC) were involved in this study.All of them were performed with happy-neutral and sad-neutral expressional chimeric faces (ECF) and the attentional deviation scores were compared between and within groups.ResultsThere were statistically significant differences of attentional deviation scores ( happy-neutral ECF:t =15.550,P ＜ 0.0l ; sadneutral ECF:t=12.192,P＜0.01 ) between the USN group (happy-neutral ECF:0.78 ±0.22;sad-neutral ECF:0.50 ±0.20) and the HC group (happy-neutral ECF:-0.31 ±0.20;sad-neutral ECF:-0.25 ±0.17),with rightward bias in the USN group and small leftward bias in the HC group.For the USN group,the magnitude of rightward bias in the sad-neutral ECF condition was reduced than in the happy-neutral ECF condition ( t =3.954,P=0.002 ).There were no statistically differences under happy-and sad-neutral ECF conditions within the HC group ( t =- 1.302,P =0.203 ).ConclusionsUSN patients show rightward attentional bias under both happyand sad-neutral ECF conditions.However,the magnitude of rightward bias under the sad-neutral ECF condition are reduced significantly.This might be attributed to the unconscious processing of stimuli in the neglected side and emotion cognition of the brain hemispheres.