Cathodal but not anodal tDCS over the pre-SMA significantly improved OCD symptoms.

Objectives The enforcement of complete lockdown with home confinement has been necessary to limit SARS-CoV-2 contagions in Italy, one the most affected countries worldwide. Simultaneously, in several Emergency Departments, a reduction in cardio- and cerebrovascular presentations was noticed. This study analyses the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on the incidence of stroke, in Campania, the most densely-populated region in Italy. Materials and Methods We retrospectively analyzed data regarding acute stroke patients presenting at 5 Campania stroke hubs, before and after the issue of lockdown in Italy on March 9th, 2020. Results Compared to the pre-lockdown, we observed a significant reduction in the number of acute reperfusion treatments in stroke (P for interact 0.001); however the global number of patients presenting with acute stroke did not significantly differ. The time to reach medical attention was significantly longer in the lockdown phase (230 versus 154 min, P 0.016). For patients who underwent acute reperfusion treatment we also observed significantly longer time-to-imaging (30 versus 40 min, P 0.0005) and a trend to longer time-to-needle (75 versus 90 min P 0.23), but not time-to-groin. Conclusions This study showed the reduction in acute reperfusion treatments for acute ischemic stroke and the slowdown of stroke pathways, during the lockdown phase of Covid-19 pandemic, in Campania, the third-most-populous and the most-densely populated Italian Region. In the next future, the risk for high-grade disability and death, due to delayed or even avoided hospital presentation due to fear of contagion, may be high.

A new onset of status epilepticus in a previously healthy adult preceded by a recent minor febrile infection represents a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge in clinical practice. Considering the broad spectrum of epileptic encephalopathies caused by autoimmune mechanisms, differential diagnosis for new-onset refractory status epilepticus (NORSE) should include febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome (FIRES), in order to not underestimate the underlying etiological condition triggering epilepsy in non-epileptic patients (Hon et al. in Recent Pat Inflamm Allergy Drug Discov 12:128-135, 2018). We report a case of acute encephalopathy with refractory seizures after a febrile illness (FIRES) in a young adult with complete remission of symptoms as well as dramatic improvement of EEG abnormalities following intravenous immunoglobulin and proper antiepileptic medications. We conducted an extensive workup including lumbar puncture, blood tests, EEG serial monitoring, MRI brain, total body CT scan, and PET brain with FDG to shed light on the etiology of the disease.

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Introduction:Empathy is the human ability to understand and share other people's feelings through knowledge, observation and memory. Lower levels of empathy lead to poor social functioning, like in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Schizophrenia and Autism. Until today, very few studies have focused on empathic deficits in depressed patients.Aims:Our aim was to evaluate whether MDD causes variations in empathy levels.Objectives:We wanted to assess cognitive and affective components of Empathy in a sample of women with MDD, and relate them to clinical issues. We compared these results to a control sample.Methods:Our sample included 20 female patients with MDD and a control group, homogeneous for age and gender. We used the Hamilton scale for depression (HAM- D) to evaluate depression severity, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to evaluate cognitive and affective empathy, the Faux pas test to assess cognitive empathy; Pearson and Mann tests for statistic analysis.Results:In general, patients showed mild depression levels (HAM- D: 14, 41± 6, 07). Severity of symptoms and empathy levels were inversely related with Faux Pas and IRI results (R: −0, 5805; R: −0, 5145), with patients being worse than the control group. Patients showed deficits in personal distress and perspective taking IRI subscales.Conclusions:Our study shows that in depressed patients both components of Empathy are modified; in particular, personal distress increases, while perspective taking decreases. Additional studies and higher numbers of patients will be necessary to further investigate whether empathic deficits are trait- or state-depending MDD characteristics.