Jafar Mehvari, Zeinab Jaafari, Mohamad Zare, Nasim Tabrizi, Alireza Khosravi Farsani,
Volume 0, Issue 0 (Accepted Articles 2018)
Abstract
Introduction: Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the substantial cause of death in patients with epilepsy (PWE). Electroconductive disorders leading to life-threatening arrhythmia are mostly hypothesized to play a crucial role; however, there is paucity of knowledge in variable among the patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) compared to the healthy controls.
Methods: The current case-control study has been conducted on 50 drug-resistant TLE patients as the cases and 50 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects selected from their first-degree family members. ECGs were taken when admitted at the hospital (base line), immediately after a seizure incidence and within an hour after the end of the seizure from the cases compared with a random ECG of the controls considering parameters including PR-, RR-, and corrected QT interval (QTc), P wave duration and heart rate (HR) variability.
Results: Shorter corrected QTc interval was notified among the drug-resistant TLE patients compared to the controls (P-value=0.017) in the base line taken ECGs, while the assessments immediately after the seizure revealed significant differences in terms of RR-interval (P-value=0.005) and heart rate (P-value=0.005). Post-ictal ECGs did not differ between the groups (P-value>0.05).
Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, shortened QTc interval at base line ECGs, shortened RR interval and increased HR during the seizure were the ECG elements affected in drug-resistant TLE patients; however, to generalize the outcomes, further studies are required.
Yousef Moghadas Tabrizi, Meysam Yavari Kateb, Shahnaz Shahrbanian,
Volume 14, Issue 1 (January & February 2023)
Abstract
Introduction: Previous studies have reported dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) activation during the performance of spatial working memory (SWM), therefore this study aims to compare the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) between these two areas.
Methods: Fifty-four healthy right-handed students (27 women, 27 men; age=24.3±0.2 years) were randomly assigned to an anodal group (n=27) and a sham group (n=27), each of these groups was divided into F4 (representing right DLPFC) or P4 (representing right PPC) subgroups, respectively. A computerized Corsi block tapping (CBT) task was used to measure SWM. The tDCS intervention consisted of five daily sessions with a direct current of 1.5 mA for 15 minutes on the F4 or P4 area of the brain at 24-hour intervals.
Results: Significant enhancement of the SWM span as well as a faster response was observed after anodal tDCS in both the anterior and posterior direction. Moreover, stimulation of the left DLPFC induced a faster reaction time compared to the right PPC.
Conclusion: Stimulation DLPFC and PPC, as an element of the frontoparietal network, showed SWM enhancement, with the DLPFC being more affected. Our finding provides new evidence to compare the effect of stimulation on the two main activated cortical areas during visual SWM.
