EUROPEAN NEUROLOGICAL REVIEW – VOLUME 13 ISSUE 2 – WINTER 2018

Welcome to the latest edition of European Neurological Review, which features a diverse range of articles covering new developments in neurological disease. We begin with one of our popular expert interviews on the subject of headache disorders. Nunu Lund presents some fascinating new insights into cluster headache. Later in the journal, Kainth et al. present […]

Cluster headache (CH) is a primary headache disorder affecting up to 0.1% of the population.1 It is characterised by the extreme nature of the attacks, the unilateral distribution of pain and the accompanying ipsilateral autonomic symptoms and restlessness.2 Attacks may arise between once every other day and eight times a day during the attack periods, […]

  Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is defined as a sudden, unexpected, witnessed or unwitnessed, non-traumatic and non-drowning death in a patient with epilepsy, with or without evidence of a seizure, excluding documented status epilepticus, in which post-mortem examination does not reveal a toxicological or anatomical cause.1 It is the most common cause of […]

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS), which has an enormous social and economic cost.1 In most cases (~85%), the disease course is initially characterised by clinical exacerbations (relapses), which occur with a relatively random pattern and can be followed by partial or complete recovery. After a variable […]

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a relatively rare autoimmune disease, caused by an antibody-mediated blockade of neuromuscular transmission and resulting in skeletal muscle weakness. MG is characterised by fluctuating muscle weakness that worsens with activity and improves on resting. Over half of patients with MG initially present with ocular symptoms with or without generalised weakness.1–3 However, […]

In March 2017, a mini-symposium at the 11th Congress of Controversies in Neurology (CONy), Athens, Greece, was dedicated to neuro-Behçet’s disease (NBD). An introduction into the key clinical features of Behçet’s disease (BD) was followed by a review of its neurological manifestations and a focused presentation of the challenges of differential diagnosis. This review represents […]

  The occurrence of mixed dementias is significantly related to the aging process.1 Their brain pathology accounts for most cases in community-dwelling older persons.2 Mixed dementias are clinically under-recognised and need neuropathological confirmation.3 The most frequent types are those composed of Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) associated with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), cerebral arteriosclerotic micro-angiopathy (CAMA), and […]

Headache disorders represent a large share of consultations in neurology services. A study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that one-third of all neurological consultations are currently reserved for headache.1 Neurology clinics often have long waiting lists, extending to over 1 year for a first consultation. Such waiting times substantially delay patients’ access […]

Levetiracetam (LEV) is an anti-epileptic drug (AED) indicated for treatment of a broad range of seizure types, of both focal and generalised onset.1 It has many advantages that make it one of most commonly used AEDs. Among the principle ones are its high efficiency, its rapid initial effect, its availability for parenteral administration and its […]

Herpes zoster, also known as shingles, is one of the many manifestations of neurologic disorders and occurs with a cumulative life-time incidence of 10–20% in the general population.1 The annual incidence of this disease differs worldwide; in the UK, herpes zoster is found in 0.37 per 1,000 population, with the risk of a second attack […]

Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) is characterised by the presence of visual hallucinations (VH) and visual sensory deprivation in individuals with preserved cognitive status and without a history of psychiatric illness.1 CBS is a rare, underdiagnosed and under-recognised syndrome, which was first described in 1769 by Charles Bonnet, who observed this phenomenon in his grandfather.1 The […]