FOIADELLI T.

COVID-19 is a pandemic caused by human coronavirus (HCoV) SARS-CoV-2, which originated in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 and spread globally during 2020. Due to the difficulty of clinical decision-making during this period, our study group reviewed current literature focusing on the neurological and psychiatric aspects of COVID-19. Despite...

Stickler syndrome is a genetically heterogeneous collagenopathy characterized by auditory, ocular, musculoskeletal, and orofacial abnormalities. Stickler syndrome type 1 typically presents ophthalmologic involvement and is due to heterozygous defects of the COL2A1 gene, that have been also identified as the molecular cause of a continuous...

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the potential involvement of neuroinflammation in the pathogenesis of epilepsy. Specifically, the role of innate immunity (that includes cytokines and chemokines) has been extensively investigated either in animal models of epilepsy and in clinical settings. Developmental and epileptic...

Rasmussen encephalitis (RE) is a unilateral hemispheric encephalitis whose main clinical features include refractory focal epilepsy or epilepsia partialis continua, hemiparesis, and progressive cognitive decline. Despite the autoimmune pathogenesis of RE, the only definitive therapeutic option is currently represented by surgery. We review the...

Sydenham's Chorea (SC) is a hyperkinetic movement disorder associated with neuropsychiatric manifestations. It is believed to be caused by the autoimmune response following a group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal (GABHS) pharyngitis, and it is one of the major diagnostic criteria for Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF) diagnosis. Despite having been...

Background: Sunflower syndrome (SFS) is a rare childhood-onset generalized epilepsy characterized by photosensitivity, heliotropism, and drug-resistant stereotyped seizures maybe self-induced by hand-waving maneuvers. Data on the long-term prognosis are scantly and evidence over best treatment strategies is lacking. Methods: We retrospectively...

Background. The association between Migraine with Aura (MA) and vascular disease has been previously reported. We investigated whether pre-clinical vascular alterations, such as Endothelial Dysfunc-tion, are already present in children and adolescents with Migraine with Aura. Methods. We retrospectively enrolled 27 patients having Migraine with...

Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome (PRES) is characterized by acute neurological symptoms with typical imaging features, primarily in the territories of the brain supplied by the posterior circulation, probably due to vasogenic edema. Both clinical and imaging features are generally reversible. We report a 13-year-old girl affected by...

Background: recent studies reported that anti myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibody (ab) related optic neuritis (ON) tend to have characteristics that differ from seronegative ones. The aim of our study was to investigate the clinical characteristics of pediatric anti-MOG ON by comparing anti MOG-ab-seropositive and seronegative...

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic pointed out new burdens for researchers on mental health and that evidence-based (EB) studies on vulnerable populations are timely needed. The present paper aims at analysing the impact of suspicious of SARS-COV-2 infection in a cohort of parents presented at 3 major hospitals (spread between north and...

Background: Poirier–Bienvenu Neurodevelopmental Syndrome (POBINDS) is a rare disease linked to mutations of the CSNK2B gene, which encodes for a subunit of caseinkinase CK2 involved in neuronal growth and synaptic transmission. Its main features include early-onset epilepsy and intellectual disability. Despite the lack of cases described, it...

Objectives: Sydenham's Chorea (SC) is a neuropsychiatric disorder and a major manifestation of acute rheumatic fever. The erroneous assumption that SC is a benign and self-limiting disease, has led to a lack of high-quality scientific evidence of the therapeutical and prognostic features of SC. Study design: We retrospectively analyzed the...