Initial and follow-up brain MRI findings and correlation with the clinical course in Wilson's disease

We performed pretreatment brain MRIs in 25 patients with neurologically symptomatic Wilson's disease (WD) and clinical and MRI follow-up in 16 of them. All 25 pretreatment MRIs revealed abnormalities, with abnormal high-signal intensity (HSI) in bilateral thalami being the most common (92%). HSI lesions in the brainstem (84%) and the basal ganglia (72%) were also common. Brain atrophy was present in 88% of the 25 patients. In the follow-up period of 5 to 24 months, during which the patients were treated with D-penicillamine, both HSI lesions and neurologic symptoms improved in 88% of the 16 patients, but the brain atrophy did not change.     

Movement disorders in the context of P.K. Anokhin's theory of functional systems

The authors' own findings and the data available in the literature as to movement diseases (MD) in animals and man were reviewed in the context of P. K. Anokhin's theory of functional systems. The functional system of the human body's gravity center is detailed. There is evidence for that disintegration processes underlying MD first occur in the mnestic sphere since due to genetic and/or ontogenetic causes, memory has no preserved no motor programme required to achieve the end net efficiency of performance of this functional system,--to maintain the definite position of the gravity center of the body and its related vegetative status upon stress-induced vestibular exposures. Based on the above concepts of the pathogenesis of MD, its preventive measures have been proposed and tested, which include drug (nootropic agents) and non-drug (a special complex of physical exercises for children aged 2 to 7 years, which will form permanent motor programs in memory in definite periods of their ontogenesis) measures.