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The article discusses a case study of a 58-year-old woman with Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 12 (SCA12) who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the posterior subthalamic area (PSA) to treat her intractable action tremor. The patient's tremor significantly improved after DBS, leading to better quality of life and sustained tremor control. The study highlights the short-term effectiveness of DBS in treating SCA12 and suggests that patients with SCA12 and mild cerebellar ataxia may benefit from this treatment. The authors emphasize the need for continued monitoring to assess the long-term outcomes of DBS for SCA12. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) has been reported to improve the quality of life (QoL) related to Parkinson's disease (PD). However, not all subjects are satisfied with the postsurgical QoL outcome. We aimed to detect the related factors and possible predictors to QoL improvement for those PD patients one year after STN DBS. Materials and Methods: A total of 45 PD patients with bilateral STN DBS surgery were included and followed up for 1 year. The Reliable Change Index (RCI) was adapted to determine the individual postsurgical QoL outcome. The changes of QoL were correlated with baseline parameters and the changes of progression parameters using Pearson's correlation. The exploratory stepwise regressions were adopted to detect the extents of baseline variables and progression parameters. The predictors to QoL outcome were detected using the logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 51.1% of the patients reported a better QoL, 40.0% of patients reported an unchanged QoL, while 8.9% of patients reported a worsening of QoL. The subdomains of mobility, activity of daily living, cognition, and bodily discomfort improved significantly after the surgery. The presurgical factors including QoL, dopaminergic medication burden, disease stages, depression scores, and postsurgical reductions in depression and nonmotor scores were found to correlate with QoL changes. Furthermore, the greater presurgical QoL burden, lesser dopaminergic medication exposure, and earlier disease stages were predictors to QoL improvements. Conclusion: The clinicians should carefully evaluate the nonmotor symptoms and life quality in those patients at relatively earlier stages and with lower medicine dosage to get more successful DBS outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a well-established therapy for patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD), dystonia, and other movement disorders. In contrast to the strong positive effects that have been documented for motor symptoms, the effects of DBS on nonmotor symptoms have not been fully elucidated. Some reports suggest that stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus may improve lower urinary tract symptoms in patients with PD; however, reports of the effects of globus pallidus internus (GPi) DBS on urinary symptoms are limited. The authors present the case of a 49-year-old woman with PD who developed severe urinary incontinence after 27 months of GPi DBS. The urinary incontinence disappeared when stimulation was turned off, and reemerged after it was turned on again. After activation of a more dorsal contact in the left electrode, the patient's urinary dynamics returned to normal.

Objective: To compare the relation between the preoperative functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) technique and intraoperative motor evoked potential (MEP) monitoring for cortical mapping of primary motor cortex in patients with tumors near the central area. And to determine whether non-invasive preoperative fMRI can provide results equivalent to those achieved with the invasive neurosurgical "gold standard"., Methods: A prospective study of 16 patients with various pathological tumors of the central area was conducted. Preoperative fMRI scans using the BOLD contrast technique in each patient were performed. An activation scan was achieved by using a motor task paradigm, which consisted of simple flexion-extension finger movements and finger-to-thumb touching in a repeating pattern. The anatomical structure was delineated by the T(1)-weighted three-dimensional fast spoiled gradient recalled sequence (3D/FSPGR) immediately afterward. The BOLD images were overlaid on the T(1)-weighted 3D/FSPGR images, and then co-registered to the neuronavigation system. The fMRI activations were documented by using a neuronavigation system in sequence, and compared to standardized intraoperative MEP monitoring, which included direct cortical electrical stimulation (DCES) or transcranial cortical electrical stimulation (TCES) or their combination. The compound muscle action potentials of forearm flexor and hand muscle responses were recorded during either TCES or DCES. Two techniques were compared to determine the accuracy for cortical mapping of primary motor areas with fMRI., Results: Overall, the intraoperative MEP monitoring showed good correlation with fMRI activation in 92.3% of cases. The coincidence rate, however, was 100.0% between TCES and fMRI, and 66.7% between DCES and fMRI respectively. There was no statistically difference between two cortical mapping techniques, chi-square test of paired comparison of enumeration data, P < 0.01., Conclusion: BOLD fMRI was a high sensitive and reliable technique to locate the position of the primary motor areas and their spatial relation with adjacent tumor, especially for the presurgical planning in patients with central area brain tumor.