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Mismatch negativity analysis in drug-resistant
epileptic patients implanted with vagus nerve stimulator.
Department of Neuroscience, Clinical
Neurology,
Pisa University School of Medicine, Via Roma, 67, 56126 Pisa, Italy;
Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Stella Maris Scientific
Institute, Pisa, Italy.
It is well known that some epileptic
patients does
not respond to conventional treatments, despite multiple combination of
antiepileptic drugs, and they are therefore considered drug-resistant.
For these patients, vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) represents a
successful alternative to traditional therapy, and it is generally well
tolerated; beside benefits on seizure frequency, VNS showed positive
effects on cognition and mood. Aim of this study was to investigate
short-term memory changes in a group of 12 patients implanted with VNS,
through Mismatch Negativity wave (MMN). After 1 year of follow-up, MMN
latencies and amplitudes did not show significant changes following VNS
implantation, independently on current intensity, as compared with
pre-implantation values. In two patients, MMN values, which were
abnormal before VNS implantation, showed a major reduction in latency
and an increase in amplitude after implantation, suggesting a likely
positive effect of VNS on pre-attentive processes investigated by MMN.
PMID: 17499640 [PubMed - in process]
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