Noropsikiyatri Arsivi-Archives of Neuropsychiatry最新文献

Introduction: Nonverbal communication (NC) skills develop dramatically during the first year of life. Especially in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), inadequacies in these skills in the early period negatively affect language development later. Therefore, early recognition of ASD symptoms is the first step in the diagnosis. The test to screen ASD at the earliest age is the Modified Checklist for Autism in Young Children/M-CHAT in Turkey. However, this test can be used for 18 months or later. In the present study, we aimed to adapt the Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale (CNCS) to Turkish, which was developed in Iran to evaluate NC skills in children from birth to 18 months and determine psychometric properties.

Methods: This cross-sectional and methodological study was conducted in 3 provinces and included 323 parents of children who are normally hearing and 3-18 months old. Sociodemographic form, Ankara Development Screening Inventory, CNCS-Turkish form, and LittleEARS Auditory Questionnaire were applied.

Results: CNCS Turkish form consisting of 37 questions shows a two-factor structure. The reliability coefficient of the 37-item scale is highly reliable (KR-20=0.937). It also had good convergent validity based on a significant correlation between total scores and LittleEARS results (r=0.804, P<0.001). According to the normative curve plotted by the CNCS total score for age, NC skills progressed with a steep slope from 3 to 12 months and then progressed gradually until 18 months.

Conclusions: Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale (CNCS) is a promising tool showing good validity and reliability in Turkish.

Introduction: Copy number variations (CNVs), which are genetic factors responsible for human evolution, have emerged as underlying pathogenic factors for a number of diseases such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). DUF1220 coding sequences have been shown to be positively associated with the severity of symptoms in familial/multiplex cases of autism. However, this association has not been confirmed in simplex autism, and the potential impact of gender/sex has not been studied.

Methods: Using saliva samples taken from Iranian children with non-syndromic simplex autism, different ethnicity/race and genetic backgrounds from previous studies, we assessed the association between DUF1220 CNVs and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) domain scores in both males and females.

Results: In the male and female combined group with autism, in line with previous reports, our findings showed that there were no significant associations between DUF1220 CNVs with either total ADI-R score, social, communication, or repetitive diagnostic scores in simplex autism cases. Interestingly, however, in sex classified groups, despite the insignificant results, our findings in girls with autism showed a negative trend between DUF1220 CNVs and severity of symptoms for the social interaction and communication domains. By contrast, in male children with autism, the results showed a positive trend.

Conclusion: It seems that association of DUF1220 CNV with the severity of symptoms in simplex children with autism may follow a sexually dimorphic pattern that needs to be re-examined in prospective studies.

Introduction: To evaluate the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Sialorrhea Clinical Scale for Parkinson's disease (SCS-PD) for use in clinical settings.

Methods: The original English version of SCS-PD has been adapted to Turkish (SCS-TR) in accordance with international guidelines. Forty-one patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) and 31 healthy people were included in our study. SCS-TR, Movement Disorders Society United Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) Part II (functional subscale 2.2 Saliva and drooling), Drooling Frequency and Severity Scale (DFSS) and The Non-Motor Symptoms Questionnaire (NMSQ) (1st question evaluating saliva) were applied to both groups. The adapted scale was re-tested in PD patients 2 weeks later.

Results: A statistically significant relationship was determined between the SCS-TR scale score and all similar scale scores (NMSQ, MDS-UPDRS, DFSS) (p<0.001). The correlation between SCS-TR and similar scales scores was high, linear and positive (84.8% for MDS-UPDRS, 72.3% for DFSS and 70.1% for NMSQ). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the evaluation of the reliability of the sialorrhea clinical scale questionnaire was found to be 0.881 which indicates a very good internal consistency. Spearman's correlation test evaluating the relationship between the scores of the preliminary test and re-test of SCS-TR showed a high level, linear and positive relationship.

Conclusion: SCS-TR is consistent with the original version of SCS-PD. As its validity and reliability in Turkey have been shown by our study, it can be used for the evaluation of sialorrhea in Turkish PD patients.

Mild encephalitis/encephalopathy with a reversible lesion in the splenium (MERS) is a clinico-radiological syndrome with mild central nervous system symptoms and a reversible lesion in the splenium of the corpus callosum. It is mainly associated with a number of viral and bacterial infections, including Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this paper, we report four MERS patients. One had a mumps infection, the second had aseptic meningitis, the third had Marchiafava-Bignami disease, and the fourth had atypical pneumonia associated with COVID-19 infection.

Introduction: It is aimed to report the effects of bilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) on motor symptoms, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and quality of life in Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients.

Methods: The results of 22 patients with PD, who had undergone bilateral STN-DBS, were analyzed. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) was applied to assess the patients' clinical characteristics before surgery and 6-, and 12-month follow-up after surgery. The quality of life of the patients was evaluated with the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). Neuropsychological tests including Minnesota Impulse Control Disorders Interview (MIDI), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS), and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were also routinely performed at baseline and 6 months and 12 months after surgery.

Results: The mean age of patients was 57.3±8.8 years. Fourteen patients (63.6%) were male. Significant improvements were seen in UPDRS-part-II, UPDRS-part-III UPDRS-part-IV, and PDQ-39 in the follow-ups after the surgery. No significant change was observed in 6- and 12-month follow-up visits for BDI, HADS, MMSE, and LARS, compared to baseline. A depressive episode, requiring antidepressant treatment was recorded in four (18.1%) patients. Before DBS surgery, eight patients had at least one current impulse control behaviors (ICBs). Among these eight patients; ICBs disappeared in one patient, did not change in two patients, and worsened in five patients after STN-DBS treatment.

Conclusion: In patients with a history of psychiatric disease, bilateral STN-DBS treatment may aggravate psychiatric symptoms such as depression, and ICBs.

Dropped head is an abnormal forward flexion of the cervical spine. Patients can straighten their heads with support. This condition, which is seen as neck extensor muscle weakness, is defined as 'head ptosis' or 'dropped head syndrome' and is seen in various central and neuromuscular diseases. Myasthenia gravis, inflammatory myopathy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, facio-scapulo-humeral dystrophy, nemaline myopathy, carnitine deficiency and spinal muscular atrophy are some of the neuromuscular diseases seen in dropped head cases. We aimed to present 3 different cases with a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, inflammatory myopathy, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis presenting with dropped head.

Introduction: Cardiovascular risk in depression has been investigated in small clinical samples and population-based studies revealing inconclusive results. However, cardiovascular risk in drug-naive depressed patients has not been tested extensively.

Methods: Body mass index-based Framingham Cardiovascular Risk Scores and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) levels were used to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease in drug-naive depressed patients and healthy volunteers.

Conclusion: There were no significant differences in Framingham Cardiovascular Risk Scores and individually assessed risk variables between patients and healthy controls (HC). Both groups were comparable in terms of sICAM-1.

Results: The widely recognized association between cardiovascular risk and major depression might be more prominent in older depressed patients and patients with recurring episodes.