Patrícia Klobušiaková

• Central European Institute of Technology

Transcranial direct current stimulation combined with cognitive training (tDCS-cog) represents a promising approach to combat cognitive decline among healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this 5-day-long double-blinded randomized trial, we investigated the impact of intensified tDCS-cog protocol involving two tr...

Multimodal interventions combining transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with cognitive training have shown promise in producing lasting cognitive improvements among healthy aging individuals and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this 5-day double-blind randomized trial, we investigated the effects of intensified tDCS proto...

White Matter Lesions (WML) are a radiological finding common in aged subjects. We explored the impact of WML on underlying neurodegenerative processes. We focused on the impact of WML on two neurodegenerative diseases with different pathology. In this cross-sectional study of 137 subjects (78 female, 59 men, mean age 67.2; 43–87 years), we compared...

Background There is numerous literature on mechanisms underlying variability of practice advantages. Literature includes both behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Unfortunately, no studies are focusing on practice in constant conditions to the best of our knowledge. Hence it is essential to assess possible differences in mechanisms of neuroplastici...

Introduction Impaired copy of intersecting pentagons from the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), has been used to assess dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD). We used a digitizing tablet during the pentagon copying test (PCT) as a potential tool for evaluating early cognitive deficits in PD without major cognitive impairment. We also aimed to un...

Dance is a complex sensorimotor activity with positive effects on physical fitness, cognition, and brain plasticity in the aging population. We explored whether individual levels of cognitive reserve (CR) proxied by education moderate dance intervention (DI)-induced plasticity assessed by resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) changes of the...

Dance is a complex sensorimotor activity with positive effects on physical fitness, cognition, and brain plasticity in the aging population. We explored whether individual levels of cognitive reserve (CR) proxied by education moderate dance intervention (DI)-induced plasticity assessed by resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) changes of the...

Background. Hypokinetic dysarthria is a common but difficult-to-treat symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Objectives. We evaluated the long-term effects of multiple-session repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on hypokinetic dysarthria in PD. Neural mechanisms of stimulation were assessed by functional MRI. Methods. A randomized parallel-g...

Introduction Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is common in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Our objective was to evaluate articulatory networks and their reorganization due to PD pathology in individuals without overt speech impairment using a multimodal MRI protocol and acoustic analysis of speech. Methods A total of 34 PD patients with no subjective HD comp...

Using multishell diffusion MRI and both tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and probabilistic tracking of specific tracts of interest, we evaluated the neural underpinnings of the impact of a six-month dance intervention (DI) on physical fitness and cognitive outcomes in nondemented seniors. The final cohort had 76 nondemented seniors, randomized...

Background: Diffusion kurtosis imaging has been applied to evaluate white matter and basal ganglia micro-structure in mixed Parkinson's disease (PD) groups with inconclusive results. Objectives: To evaluate specific patterns of kurtosis changes in PD and to assess the utility of diffusion imaging in differentiating between healthy subjects and cogn...

Aims: Visual snow is a neurological condition, for which an effective treatment has not been established. The aim of this study was to find whether Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) can improve the state of patients suffering from visual snow. To our knowledge, no other group has tested this method in the treatment of visual snow...

Purpose of Review We summarize structural (s)MRI findings of gray matter (GM) atrophy related to cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) in light of new analytical approaches and recent longitudinal studies results. Recent Findings The hippocampus-to-cortex ratio seems to be the best sMRI biomarker to discrimi...

Dance-movement intervention (DMI) offers multi-component stimulation of cognitive functions, and it may ameliorate cognitive deficits in the elderly. We investigated the effects of intensive DMI on the cognitive performances of healthy seniors (HS) and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In addition, we evaluated whether the baseline MRI...

Objectives: To evaluate effects of a six-month intensive dance exercise intervention (DI) on cognition and brain structure in a mixed group of healthy seniors and people with mild cognitive impairment. Methods: Subjects (aged ˃ 60 years with no dementia or depression) were randomly assigned to either a DI group or a LAU (life as usual) group. De...

Background Cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is associated with altered connectivity of the resting state networks (RSNs). Longitudinal studies in well cognitively characterized PD subgroups are missing. Objectives To assess changes of the whole-brain connectivity and between-network connectivity (BNC) of large-scale functional netw...

Using MRI, a characteristic pattern of grey matter (GM) atrophy has been described in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD); GM patterns at different stages of Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been inconclusive. Few studies have directly compared structural changes in groups with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) caused by different pathologies (...

Introduction: Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a common symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) which does not respond well to PD treatments. We investigated acute effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the motor and auditory feedback area on HD in PD using acoustic analysis of speech. Methods: We used 10 Hz and 1 Hz stimula...

Background and objective Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is a promising tool to study and modulate brain plasticity and connectivity. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of theta burst stimulation (TBS) on the Stroop task (ST) performance and related changes in resting state functional brain connectivity. dorsal attent...

Introduction Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) show abnormal functional connectivity in large-scale brain networks. We explored resting state connectivity among the main networks, including the default mode network (DMN), dorsal attentional network (DAN), frontoparietal control network (FPCN) and visual network (VN) in PD patients with and wit...

Introduction Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) which does not respond well to PD treatments. We investigated short-term effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on HD in PD using acoustic analysis of speech. Methods We used both high and low frequency rTMS applied over the right poste...

We examined effects of theta burst stimulation (TBS) applied over two distinct cortical areas (the right inferior frontal gyrus and the left superior parietal lobule) on the Stroop task performance in 20 young healthy subjects. Neural underpinnings of the behavioral effect were tested using fMRI. A single session of intermittent TBS of the left sup...