Acute injuries in Finnish junior floorball league players

Objectives

To investigate the incidence and characteristics of acute time-loss injuries in Finnish junior floorball league players.

Burden of healthcare-associated infections in European acute care hospitals

Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift - Point prevalence surveys of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and antimicrobial use in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) from 2016 to...     

Gait reveals bilateral adaptation of motor control in patients with chronic unilateral stroke

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Functional brain imaging has shown that bilateral brain reorganization may occur after unilateral cerebral damage. The present study searched for evidence of bilateral motor control changes in gait in patients with chronic unilateral stroke. METHODS: Gait variables (temporal and spatial parameters, footprint peak times (FPPT) and footfall times (FFT)) were recorded in 48 patients with chronic unilateral stroke at their preferred speed, and in 10 healthy volunteers walking from very slowly to very fast on a pressure sensor walkway. The data were divided into 4 groups according to gait velocity. The functional outcome of stroke was measured by the Barthel Index. RESULTS: Patients' gait variables reflected their hemiparetic gait pattern. Slower patients had prolonged stance, FPPT and FFT on the non-affected side (NS), and prolonged swing and shorter FPPT and FFT on the affected side (AS). The magnitude of the asymmetry index of these parameters was inversely associated with velocity performance and, at the same time, it characterized how much the control of the clinically healthy (NS) side was altered during walking. Bilateral changes in kinetic and footfall variables in the chronic stage of unilateral stroke were present. CONCLUSIONS: Patients chose their preferred walking velocity using stereotyped, alternative gait patterns, in which the contribution of the NS was larger than that of the AS. Alternative gait patterns may partly demonstrate compensatory behavioral strategies adapted by patients.     

IMPDH2: a new gene associated with dominant juvenile-onset dystonia-tremor disorder

The aetiology of dystonia disorders is complex, and next-generation sequencing has become a useful tool in elucidating the variable genetic background of these diseases. Here we report a deleterious heterozygous truncating variant in the inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase gene (IMPDH2) by whole-exome sequencing, co-segregating with a dominantly inherited dystonia-tremor disease in a large Finnish family. We show that the defect results in degradation of the gene product, causing IMPDH2 deficiency in patient cells. IMPDH2 is the first and rate-limiting enzyme in the de novo biosynthesis of guanine nucleotides, a dopamine synthetic pathway previously linked to childhood or adolescence-onset dystonia disorders. We report IMPDH2 as a new gene to the dystonia disease entity. The evidence underlines the important link between guanine metabolism, dopamine biosynthesis and dystonia.Subject terms: Movement disorders, Disease genetics     

Frequency‐specific noninvasive modulation of memory retrieval and its relationship with hippocampal network connectivity

Episodic memory is thought to rely on interactions of the hippocampus with other regions of the distributed hippocampal‐cortical network (HCN) via interregional activity synchrony in the theta frequency band. We sought to causally test this hypothesis using network‐targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation. Healthy human participants completed four experimental sessions, each involving a different stimulation pattern delivered to the same individualized parietal cortex location of the HCN for all sessions. There were three active stimulation conditions, including continuous theta‐burst stimulation, intermittent theta‐burst stimulation, and beta‐frequency (20‐Hz) repetitive stimulation, and one sham condition. Resting‐state fMRI and episodic memory testing were used to assess the impact of stimulation on hippocampal fMRI connectivity related to retrieval success. We hypothesized that theta‐burst stimulation conditions would most strongly influence hippocampal‐HCN fMRI connectivity and retrieval, given the hypothesized relevance of theta‐band activity for HCN memory function. Continuous theta‐burst stimulation improved item retrieval success relative to sham and relative to beta‐frequency stimulation, whereas intermittent theta‐burst stimulation led to numerical but nonsignificant item retrieval improvement. Mean hippocampal fMRI connectivity did not vary for any stimulation conditions, whereas individual differences in retrieval improvements due to continuous theta‐burst stimulation were associated with corresponding increases in fMRI connectivity between the hippocampus and other HCN locations. No such memory‐related connectivity effects were identified for the other stimulation conditions, indicating that only continuous theta‐burst stimulation affected memory‐related hippocampal‐HCN connectivity. Furthermore, these effects were specific to the targeted HCN, with no significant memory‐related fMRI connectivity effects for two distinct control brain networks. These findings support a causal role for fMRI connectivity of the hippocampus with the HCN in episodic memory retrieval and indicate that contributions of this network to retrieval are particularly sensitive to continuous theta‐burst noninvasive stimulation.