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Rationale: Probiotics have beneficial effects on the nervous system by modulating the gut-brain axis. Additionally, vitamin D supplementation presents a potential way for ameliorating neuropsychological disorders, particularly in regions with a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency., Objectives: The current clinical trial aimed to investigate the role of co-administered supplementation of probiotics and Vitamin D on the different inflammatory aspects of patients with Parkinson's disease., Methods: Forty-six patients with PD were recruited From the Functional Neurosurgery Research Center, Tehran, Iran. These patients were randomly allocated to one of the two treatment groups: Group A, who received probiotic/vitamin D supplements (n = 23), and Group B who received placebo capsules (n = 23) for 12 weeks. As primary outcomes, Interferon-Gamma (IFN-γ), interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), IL-6, IL-10, Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-α), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and malondialdehyde (MDA) in serum were evaluated at the baseline and the end of the trial. Moreover, Additional questionnaire-based factors including gastrointestinal symptom rating scale (GSRS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) were evaluated., Results: Our findings demonstrated that the consumption of probiotic/vitamin D supplements leads to a significant decrease in IL-1β, INF-γ, IL-6, and MDA levels, while showing a significant increase in IL-10 and TAC levels compared to the placebo group (P < 0.05). Additionally, it leads to a significant decrease in the disease severity, anxiety, and gastrointestinal problems in PD patients in comparison to the placebo group (P < 0.05)., Conclusions: Given the acknowledged role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease on one hand, and the recognized anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects associated with probiotics and vitamin D on the other hand, the concurrent administration of probiotics and vitamin D supplements emerges as a promising and potentially effective treatment option for individuals with PD., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the relationship between dysphonia severity index (DSI), speech disease and voice severity of Parkinson disease (PD) patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, carried out on 45 randomly selected PD patients with the age range of 50 to 75 years. The Hoehn and Yahr scale (H.Y scale) was employed to measure the severity of PD. To measure the DSI, we required detecting the acoustic features of the voice, such as shimmer (dB), vital capacity (VC), semitone range (STR), and voice onset time (VOT); therefore, the participants were asked to produce the vowel /a/ three times for calculating the variables, i.e., STR, VOT, fundamental frequency (F0), second formant (F2), and shimmer (dB). Their voices were analyzed by the Praat software (version 6.0.23). F0 and F2 were utilized to calculate the STR. The VOT was assessed by analyzing the spectrograph of the syllable /pa/. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to understand the correlation between DSI scores and the stage of PD (Y.H scale); the P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: A significant relationship was detected between severe DSI and the stage of PD. Meanwhile, the DSI score was statistically significant compared to the scores of the other four groups (P<0.05). Discussion: There was a significant relationship between the severity of voice changes in PD patients by DSI and the stage of their disease. Further studies in this field are needed considering that such information may be of cardinal importance for voice professionals to take early interventions, appropriate to the stage of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Parkinson Disease (PD), the second most common chronic neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and postural instability. SHANK3 (SH3 and multiple ankyrin repeat domain 3) belongs to the extremely conserved ProSAP/Shank family of synaptic scaffolding proteins. Meanwhile, rs9616915 is a non-synonymous SNP (T>C) located in the exon 6 of the SHANK3 gene, which induces substitution of isoleucine to threonine and affects the function of the resulted protein. The present study aimed to evaluate whether rs9616915 polymorphism of SHANK3 is involved in the susceptibility to PD. Methods: The study subjects were 100 patients diagnosed with PD and 100 control volunteers. The obtained samples were evaluated by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Results: A significant association was found in genotype distribution between cases and controls. Individuals with TC genotype had increased risk of PD (P=0.035, OR=1.98, 95% CI=1.04 - 3.74). No significant difference was found in allele distribution (P=0.7). Conclusion: The findings suggest that the SHANK3 rs9616915 polymorphism is associated with an increased risk of PD in the population. Further studies are needed to confirm the role of the SHANK3 gene in PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To report the establishment of a new center for deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a surgical treatment for Parkinson disease and the surgical outcomes, from 2014 to 2017 in Shiraz, Southern Iran. Methods A new treatment program was established in Shiraz through a multidisciplinary team in 2014. Thirty-four patients underwent implantation of subthalamic nucleus (STN) electrodes during the last 3 years. Twenty-five patients fulfilled the minimum 6-month follow-up criteria. The baseline Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) was assessed 1 month before surgery in both off-medication and on-medication states by a movement disorder neurologist. To evaluate the outcomes, subscores of the UPDRS were assessed in all patients before surgery and at least 6 months after the operation. Results All 25 patients had advanced Parkinson disease categorized as stage 3 or 4 using the Hoehn and Yahr scale. STN DBS resulted in a dramatic improvement in motor function of most patients. A reduction in dopaminergic medication dosage (average 60% reduction) was observed. The mean improvement was 40% in UPDRS II and 67% in UPDRS III. No surgical or hardware complications were observed. Stimulation-related adverse effects, including increased falling and worsening of speech, occurred in a few patients after surgery. Most of the patients experienced weight gain after surgery. Conclusions Bilateral STN DBS is a satisfactory and safe treatment for carefully selected patients with advanced Parkinson disease. According to the results, the procedure can be performed safely and with comparable results in developing countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Parkinson disease (PD) is one of the common causes of imbalance, and the balance assessment is necessary for treatment and rehabilitation of these patients. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS) has been the main instrument used to evaluate balance impairment. The purpose of this study is to investigate reliability and validity of the Persian translation of BBS in Parkinson disease. Methods: One hundred PD patients (with mean age of 56.8 ± 15.13 years) were included. Interrater reliability was measured with the Kappa statistics and interclass correlation coefficients. Results: The mean values of the BBS scored by the two evaluators were 47/85 ± 11/09 and 48/03 ± 10/90, respectively. The mean of Kappa coefficient between two examiners was 0.76, which was between 0.38 and 0.93 for various items. The total score recorded by both examiners, interclass correlation coefficient, was 0.99, which is excellent. Cronbach's alpha for Iranian version of BBS was 0.92, which shows the excellent reliability of the questionnaire (0.62-0.9 for all items). Conclusion: The Persian version of the BBS has excellent interrater reliability and internal consistency for the assessment of PD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease and the second most common neurological disease in the world, which usually affects people mainly in later years of life. Cognitive impairments and depressive symptoms are important symptoms in these patients that are associated with a poor prognosis. The study will focus on the original data regarding the cognitive impairments and depressive symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease and control group., Methods: In a case-control study, a total of 100 Parkinson's patients who were hospitalized in Rouhani Hospital and 200 non-Parkinson's people (control group) from Amirkola Health and aging project (AHAP) Marras et al., Babol, Iran were enrolled between September 2019 to February 2020. Data were collected by simple random sampling. Data were collected using a four-part questionnaire, including demographic characteristics, Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Modified Hoehn and Yahr staging Scale (MHYSS), Mini-M ental State Examination (MMSE) and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). P-value less than 0.05 was considered as significant RESULTS: A total of 300 persons were enrolled in the study. The mean age of Parkinson's patients and non-Parkinson's people was 70.34 ± 7.76 and 70.87 ± 7.59 years, respectively. The mean MMSE score in Parkinson's and non-Parkinson's people was 24.80 ± 4.53 and 25.40 ± 3.1, respectively (p = 0.182). The mean GDS score in Parkinson's and non-Parkinson's people was 7.06 ± 4.06 and 4.31 ± 3.47, respectively (p = 0.001). There was a statistically significant relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive impairments with disease severity (p = 0.022 and p = 0.012, respectively). In addition, variables, such as age and the education level were associated with cognitive impairments (p = 0.001 and p = 0.021, respectively), but these variables were not significantly associated with depressive symptoms (p = 0.843 and p = 0.411, respectively). There was a significant relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment in Parkinson's patients and the control group (p = 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively)., Conclusions: Cognitive impairments and depressive symptoms were significantly associated with an increase in the severity of Parkinson's disease, and also, depressive symptoms in Parkinson's patients was associated with an increase in cognitive impairments., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background and Objectives: Emotion perception plays a major role in proper communication with people in different social interactions. Nonverbal affect bursts can be used to evaluate vocal emotion perception. The present study was a preliminary step to establishing the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Montreal Affective Voices (MAV) test, as well as to investigate the effect of Parkinson disease (PD) on vocal emotion perception., Methods: The short, emotional sound made by pronouncing the vowel "a" in Persian was recorded by 22 actors and actresses to develop the Persian version of the MAV, the Persian Affective Voices (PAV), for emotions of happiness, sadness, pleasure, pain, anger, disgust, fear, surprise, and neutrality. The results of the recordings of five of the actresses and five of the actors who obtained the highest score were used to generate the test. For convergent validity assessment, the correlation between the PAV and a speech prosody comprehension test was examined using a gender- and age-matched control group. To investigate the effect of the PD on emotion perception, the PAV test was performed on 28 patients with mild PD between ages 50 and 70 years., Results: The PAV showed a high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.80). A significant positive correlation was observed between the PAV and the speech prosody comprehension test. The test-retest reliability also showed the high repeatability of the PAV (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.815, P ≤ 0.001). A significant difference was observed between the patients with PD and the controls in all subtests., Conclusion: The PAV test is a useful psychometric tool for examining vocal emotion perception that can be used in both behavioral and neuroimaging studies., (Copyright © 2018 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: This study is aimed at investigating the olfactory function among different subtypes of Parkinson disease (PD) and the impact of sex on smell identification test., Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we used Iran-smell identification test (Iran-SIT). PD severity was determined using a Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) scale. We used analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to compare the olfactory function among different PD subtypes. All analyses were performed using SPSS software version 16.0., Results: In total, 66 males and 38 females participated in this study. The most common PD subtype was postural instability and gait difficulty (38.5%). Severe hyposmia and anosmia were found in 44.6 and 19.6% of participants, respectively. Women had a higher score in olfactory function than men (p = 0.44). The score of subjects with stage 1 in the H&Y scale was about 3 points higher than the score with stage 4. The ANCOVA showed a statistically significant effect of subtypes PD on Iran-SIT score after controlling for the effects of covariates (p = 0.03). There is a significant difference between tremor-dominant Parkinson disease (TDPD) and other subtypes of PD (p < 0.05). However, Iran-SIT scores failed to show a significant difference between men and women (p = 0.13)., Discussion/conclusion: Our results confirmed that PD is heterogeneous and there is significant variability in odor identification ability in these patients. We observed more olfactory impairment in TDPD, and subjects with higher H&Y stage. We recommended future studies with repeated measurements of different aspects of smell function to characterize the temporal relationship of olfactory dysfunction with PD., (© 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel.)