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Abstract Treatment of grating stimulation has been used in amblyopia for decades, but high dropout rate and inconvenience for daily practice occur in previous studies. We developed a home-based portable system with rotating grating stimulation on a tablet. Thirty anisometropic amblyopic children were randomly allocated into the control or Grating group. They drew contour of the picture under patch of a better eye for 6 months. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), grating acuity (GA), and contrast sensitivity (CS) were assessed at the baseline, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th months of training. All participants completed the 6-month training. Patched eyes of both groups exhibited no difference. Trained eyes of the control group had significantly slight improvement in BCVA and GA. In particular, the Grating group exhibited significantly higher BCVA, GA, and CS compared with those of the control group at the 3rd and 6th months of training. Moreover, percentage of the Grating group with great improvement (BCVA ≥ 0.3 or CS ≥ 0.3) was significantly larger than those of the control group at the 3rd or 6th months of training. The portable grating stimulation system demonstrates its trainability by no dropout and effectiveness by significant improvements in all assessments through a well experimental design. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04213066, registered 30/12/2019, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04213066 .

Intracranial germ cell tumors (GCTs) are uncommon and may cause obstructive hydrocephalus, making adequate drainage necessary in symptomatic patients. Here, we present the case of a 36-year-old male patient with intracranial germinoma metastasis to the peritoneal cavity. He had a medical history of pineal germinoma status post ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt implantation and definitive radiotherapy. Two years later, the patient presented with epigastric pain, and intra-abdominal metastasis through the VP shunt with malignant transformation to a nongerminomatous GCT was noted. Chemotherapy followed by surgical resection was arranged, and he got disease free after treatment. The present report alerts clinicians to the progression of this uncommon disease and suggests that a thorough physical examination is imperative in patients with a history of intracranial GCTs who have undergone VP shunt implantation, and an alternative therapeutic plan should be considered to treat intracranial GCT-related obstructive hydrocephalus.

Abstract Background Effect of neurofeedback training (NFT) on enhancement of cognitive function or amelioration of clinical symptoms is inconclusive. The trainability of brain rhythm using a neurofeedback system is uncertainty because various experimental designs are used in previous studies. The current study aimed to develop a portable wireless NFT system for alpha rhythm and to validate effect of the NFT system on memory with a sham-controlled group. Methods The proposed system contained an EEG signal analysis device and a smartphone with wireless Bluetooth low-energy technology. Instantaneous 1-s EEG power and contiguous 5-min EEG power throughout the training were developed as feedback information. The training performance and its progression were kept to boost usability of our device. Participants were blinded and randomly assigned into either the control group receiving random 4-Hz power or Alpha group receiving 8–12-Hz power. Working memory and episodic memory were assessed by the backward digital span task and word-pair task, respectively. Results The portable neurofeedback system had advantages of a tiny size and long-term recording and demonstrated trainability of alpha rhythm in terms of significant increase of power and duration of 8–12 Hz. Moreover, accuracies of the backward digital span task and word-pair task showed significant enhancement in the Alpha group after training compared to the control group. Conclusions Our tiny portable device demonstrated success trainability of alpha rhythm and enhanced two kinds of memories. The present study suggest that the portable neurofeedback system provides an alternative intervention for memory enhancement.