After correction for education and age distribution, the variables that are commonly associated with mortality or Glasgow Outcome Scale including admission pupils' examination, Marshal CT Classification, GCS, and serum glucose showed a limited predictive power for long-term cognitive prognosis. Identification of clinical, radiological, and laboratory variables as well as new biomarkers independently associated with cognitive outcome remains an important challenge for further work involving severe TBI patients.

-Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by reduced nigrostriatal and cortical dopaminergic influence, with changes in movement and, subsequently, behavioral and cognitive disturbances. We studied cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease by assessing a group of 30 idiopathic Parkinson's disease patients with an average age of 64.23 years (PG group) and compared our findings with those for a control group of 30 patients (CG group). All the patients were submitted to the following assessments: motor function, using the UPDRS; staging, using the Hoehn-Yahr scales (PG group only); depression, using the Montgomery-Asberg scale; attention impairment; verbal fluency (FAR and animals); cognitive function, using the Mini Mental State Examination; visuospatial and executive functions; and clock drawing. In addition to altered motor function in PD patients, we found statistically significant differences between PD patients and controls in terms of cognitive function, verbal, executive and visuospatial functions, and attention deficits. Depression was more prevalent in the PG group.KEY WORS: depression, idiopathic Parkinson's disease, cognitive function. Avaliação da função cognitiva em doença de Parkinson idiopáticaRESUMO -A doença de Parkinson idiopática (DP) caracteriza-se pela redução da influência dopaminérgica nigroestriatal e cortical, com alterações em movimentos e posteriormente, comportamentais e cognitivas. Estudamos o comprometimento cognitivo de pacientes portadores de DP, avaliando 30 pacientes com doença de Parkinson idiopática (GP) com média de idade de 64,23 anos e os comparamos com um grupo controle (GC) de 30 pacientes. Todos os pacientes foram submetidos as seguintes avaliações: motora pela escala de UPDRS; estadiamento pela escala de Hoehn-Yahr (somente GP); depressão pela escala de Montgomery-Asberg; comprometimento da atenção; fluência verbal (FAR e animais); função cognitiva pelo Mini Exame do Estado Mental; funções visuoespaciais e executivas e desenho do relógio. Concluímos que na DP os pacientes apresentam além das alterações motoras diferenças estatisticamente significativas a nível cognitivo, na função verbal, funções executivas, visuoespaciais e distúrbios de atenção. Depressão foi mais prevalente no GP. PR -Brasil. E-mail: werneck@hc.ufpr.br Although the original description by James Parkinson 1 did not consider cognitive disturbances to be an integral part of the symptomatology of Parkinson's disease (PD), but Charcot and Vulpian 2,3 describe such disturbances for the fi rst time, and their fi ndings were confi rmed in recent studies 4,5 . Postmortem neuropathological studies and the use of in vivo PET scans show that nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuronal degeneration is the main physiopathological mechanism in Parkinson's disease 5,6 . The nigrostriatal dopaminergic system is part of one of the fi ve frontostriatal circuits 7 . Disruption of dopaminergic infl uence in these circuits has consequences for other circuits and thus explains a number of cognitive symptom...

RATIONALE: An estimate of 3 million people present with the diagnosis of epilepsy in Brazil. Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures (PNES) are likely to occur in up to 2-33/100.000 people. Paradoxically, very few papers address this significant condition in the Brazilian literature. We describe a Brazilian PNES population and provide a review of the literature. METHODS: we reviewed the clinical history, vídeo-electroencephalographic (VEEG) data, psychiatric diagnosis and prognosis in a series of 45 PNES patients, with emphasis on the demographics, as well as, PNES major clinical presentations and classification. RESULTS: PNES represent 5.2% of the patients referred to the VEEG monitoring at our institution; patients were mostly young with a mean age of 27y/o and a clear predominance of the female gender (78%); the majority of PNES last between 1-5 minutes, but duration was highly variable; 28/45 patients were referred due to "intractable epilepsy" and 14/28 had MR defined mesial temporal sclerosis; about a third of the patients present with the classically described PNES clinical presentation; conversive and dissociative seizures prevail on PNES classification (80%). CONCLUSIONS: clinical and VEEG data on this Brazilian population matches descriptions coming from other series, suggesting potential cross-cultural similarities in the clinical expression of this condition.

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RESUMOIntrodução: A Figura Complexa de Rey é uma medida de contrução visuo-espacial e memória não verbal utilizada em pesquisas neuropsicológicas, não apenas em epilepsia, mas em diferentes áreas das neurociências. Objetivo: O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar o uso da Figura Complexa de Rey em pesquisas neuropsicológicas e sua importância para estudos de memória não verbal em epilepsia. Métodos: Revisão sistemática da literatura publicada através do site BIREME.