CURRÀ , Antonio

Objective: To verify whether central fatigue in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with the presence of a more severe selective cognitive impairment. Methods: Twenty-four PD patients without fatigue-PDnF, 11 with fatigue-PDF and 32 healthy volunteers underwent a P300 novelty task that elicits both the P3a and the P3b...

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The functional domain of the cerebellum extends beyond its traditional role in motor control. In recent years, this structure has increasingly been considered to play a crucial role even in cognitive performance and attentional processes. Attention is defined as the ability to appropriately allocate processing resources to relevant stimuli....

Spasticity is the velocity-dependent hypertonia frequently encountered in patients affected by Upper Motor Neuron Syndrome. It is due to a tonic stretch reflex, which is evoked in patients at rest. The aim of this study, performed using surface electromyography (EMG), was to investigate stretch reflex excitability in the hamstrings muscles of...

Objective Spastic dystonia is one of the positive phenomena of the upper motor neuron syndrome (UMNS). It is characterised by the inability to relax a muscle leading to a spontaneous, although stretch-sensitive, tonic contraction. Although spastic dystonia is a recognized cause of muscle hypertonia, its prevalence among hypertonic muscles of...

: Time management is an important aspect of human behaviour and cognition. Several brain regions are thought to be involved in motor timing and time estimation tasks. However, subcortical regions such as the basal nuclei and cerebellum seem to play a role in timing control. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the cerebellum in...

Background: Nabiximols is a cannabis-based drug to treat spasticity-associated symptoms currently approved for patients with multiple sclerosis only. Cannabinoids are useful in an increasing number of medical conditions but may bear an increased risk for cardiovascular events. SativexStroke is a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled...

: Botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT-A) is the active substance in pharmaceutical preparations widely used worldwide for the highly effective treatment of various disorders. Among the three commercial formulations of BoNT-A currently available in Italy for neurological indications, abobotulinum A toxin (Dysport®, Ipsen SpA, Milano, Italy) and...

Background: Information on prevalence, pathophysiology, and clinical assessment of paratonia are scarce. In a previous study, we suggested that surface electromyography (EMG) can be used to assess paratonia. Objective: To assess clinical and EMG features of paratonia in both patients with cognitive impairment and healthy subjects. Methods: We...

Learning new information is crucial in daily activities and occurs continuously during a subject's lifetime. Retention of learned material is required for later recall and reuse, although learning capacity is limited and interference between consecutively learned information may occur. Learning processes are impaired in Parkinson's disease...

The aim of this observational study was to assess the efficacy of a tetrahydrocannabinol-cannabidiol (THC: CBD) oromucosal spray on spasticity using the stretch reflex in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Numeric rating scale (NRS) for spasticity, modified Ashworth scale (MAS), and the stretch reflex were assessed before and during...

In patients treated with botulinum toxin-A (BoNT-A), toxin-directed antibody formation was related to the dosage and frequency of injections, leading to the empirical adoption of minimum time intervals between injections of 3 months or longer. However, recent data suggest that low immunogenicity of current BoNT-A preparations could allow more...

Background: Cannabinoids may be useful to treat pain, epilepsy and spasticity, although they may bear an increased risk of cardiovascular events. This study aims to evaluate the cardiovascular safety of nabiximols, a cannabis-based drug, in patients with spasticity following stroke, thus presenting an increased cardiovascular risk. Methods:...

Objectives: To detect on computed tomography (CT) brain scans the trajectories of normal and abnormal ventricular enlargement during aging. Methods: For each 1-year age cohort, we assessed in 3,193 axial CT scans the Evans' index (EI) in the anterior frontal horns and the parieto-occipital (POR) and temporal ratio (TR) in the posterior and...

Background and Objectives: Verbal encouragement (VE) can be used to enhance performance in several sports, even though no studies have been conducted among swimmers and only a few effects have been reported in elite athletes. Besides influencing motor performance, VE is also known to enhance the physical load, thus potentially increasing the...

Many years after its initial description, paratonia remains a poorly understood concept. It is described as the inability to relax muscles during muscle tone assessment with the subject involuntary facilitating or opposing the examiner. Although related to cognitive impairment and frontal lobe function, the underlying mechanisms have not been...

Aims: To determine the prevalence of dilated ventricles and concomitant high blood glucose measures. Methods: We retrieved blood glucose measures from the emergency department database and selected a subgroup of individuals having both the radiological marker Evans' index (EI) values and blood glucose measures. Results: Out of 1221 consecutive...

Stroke is the most disabling neurological disorder and often causes spasticity. Transmucosal cannabinoids (tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol (THC:CBD), Sativex) is currently available to treat spasticity-associated symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis. Cannabinoids are being considered useful also in the treatment of pain, nausea and...

Paralympic powerlifting (PP), formerly known as "International Paralympic Committee" (IPC) powerlifting, is the format of powerlifting adapted for athletes with disabilities, and it differs from the version for able-bodied athletes in that it consists of bench press only. According to the mandate of the IPC, PP athletes should be enabled to...

Para-rowing is a format of rowing practiced by people with different types of disabilities, thanks to adapted equipment set-ups and regulations. Para-rowing made its debut recently at the 2008 Paralympic Games. According to the mandate of the "International Paralympic Committee", para-rowers should be enabled to pursue sporting excellence....

The human microbiota is comprised of more than 10–100 trillion microbial taxa and symbiotic cells. Two major human sites that are host to microbial communities are the gut and the skin. Physical exercise has favorable effects on the structure of human microbiota and metabolite production in sedentary subjects. Recently, the concept of "athletic...

Background Spasticity and spastic dystonia are two separate phenomena of the upper motor neuron syndrome. Spasticity is clinically defined by velocity-dependent hypertonia and tendon jerk hyperreflexia due to the hyper-excitability of the stretch reflex. Spastic dystonia is the inability to relax a muscle leading to a spontaneous tonic...