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Objective Treatment options for dysphagia associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) are currently limited. In this study we investigated whether intraluminal electrical pharyngeal stimulation facilitates swallowing recovery in dysphagic MS patients. Patients and methods Twenty dysphagic MS patients were randomized to receive 5 Hz "real" pharyngeal stimulation (10 patients) for 10 min or "sham" pharyngeal stimulation for 10 min (10 patients). Patients were evaluated by videofluoroscopic, and electromyographic examinations, and by the Penetration/Aspiration Scale (PAS) performed before ( T 0 ) and immediately after the last session of 5 consecutive days of electrical pharyngeal stimulation ( T 1 ), and then after two ( T 2 ), and four ( T 3 ) weeks of 5 consecutive days of pharyngeal electrical stimulation. Results Patients who received "real" stimulation showed a significant improvement in all the swallowing outcome measures as compared with those receiving "sham" stimulation. Conclusions No specific treatment for oro-pharyngeal dysphagia related to MS has been described to date. Our preliminary findings suggest a potential benefit of intraluminal electrical pharyngeal stimulation for the treatment of dysphagia caused by MS.

The study investigated relations between effects of repeated ankle plantar-flexion movements exercise on the soleus Hoffmann (H) reflex and on postural body sway when maintaining upright stance. Ten young volunteers performed five sets of ankle plantar-flexions of both lower limbs. Assessment of the feet centre-of-pressure (COP) displacement and H-reflex tests were carried out in quiet stance before, during and after the exercise. H-max and M-max responses were obtained in 8 subjects and reported as the peak-to-peak amplitudes of the right soleus muscle electromyographic waves. Mean dispersion of COP along the antero-posterior direction increased significantly during the exercise; whilst the overall H-reflex response indicated a reduction without a concomitant modification in the M-max response. H-reflex responses, however, varied between participants during the first sets of exercise, showing two main trends of modulation: either depression or early facilitation followed by reduction of the H-reflex amplitude. The extent of reflex modulation in standing position was correlated to the concentric work performed during the exercise (r=0.85; p

In an earlier study, we found that the encoding of limb position in the sagittal plane across the population of spinocerebellar Purkinje cells was anisotropic with a preferential gradient along horizontal direction. The aim of this study was to extend to a three-dimensional (3D) workspace the analysis of the relationships between Purkinje cells activity and rat's forelimb spatial position. In anesthetized animals, the extracellular activity of 121 neurons was recorded while a robot passively placed the limb in 18 positions within a cubic workspace (3x3x3 cm). In order to characterize the relationship between spatial locations and Purkinje cell activity we performed a backward stepwise regression starting from a model with three independent variables representing the antero-posterior, the medial-lateral and the vertical axes of workspace. Regression analysis showed that the firing of most cells was modulated exclusively along the antero-posterior (25%) or the medial-lateral (38%) axis, while a small portion was related only to the vertical axis (8%), indicating a generalized nonuniform sensitivity of Purkinje cells to limb displacement in 3D space.

We studied in vivo the influences exerted by the retrorubral field (RRF) on the on commissural-evoked CA1 pyramidal cell excitability in the rat hippocampal formation (HF). The stimulation of RRF before the activation of the contralateral CA3 area evoked in all the studied rats a reduction in amplitude of the evoked population spike in the CA1 pyramidal cell body layer of both the dorsal and the ventral HF. No significant differences in the intensity of the inhibitory effect were observed between dorsal and ventral parts of the HF. The stimulation of the ipsilateral RRF reduced the amplitude of the evoked population spike in a higher degree with respect to the contralateral side. Since these side-to-side differences were significant, it can be concluded that the RRF-induced inhibitory effect is stronger on the ipsilateral CA1 pyramidal cells. The inhibitory effect appears within 0.1 s of stimulating the RRF, reaches its maximal effect around 0.4-0.5 s following the conditioning train and returned to its control size after 5 s.