Objective: to investigate sexual disorders (SDs) in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) both before and after undergoing various temporal lobe operative procedures.
Material and methods. A retrospective andrological and sexologic study was conducted, utilizing catamnesis data. Multiple examination methods were employed, including semen and prostatic fluid analysis, Decourt–Dumic sperm morphotype analysis, vegetative tests, Shcherbak thermoregulation reflex examination, ultraviolet erythema test, sugar curve analysis, and electroencephalography. The study assessed the results of surgical treatment and long-term catamnesis for 120 TLE patients who had undergone various temporal lobe operative procedures (TLPs), with ages at the time of surgery ranging from 4.5 to 47 years. Among them, 82 patients (41 males and 41 females) in the main group reported complaints of SDs, representing 100% for all calculations.
Results. Hypersexuality and sexual perversions were most prevalent among patients with severe mental disorders. Following TLPs, patients with mild mental disorders and cessation of epileptic seizures (EPs) experienced regression in 83.6% of SD cases. Conversely, among patients with severe mental disorders, SDs regressed in 45% of cases after TLPs. Encouraging outcomes were observed in patients with hypersexuality, which was ameliorated after the cessation of EPs, with a catamnesis period ranging from 17 to 24 years.
Conclusion. This study, conducted in real-world clinical settings, supports the recommendation of surgical treatment for TLE patients with mild mental disorders. In the majority of cases, the cessation or reduction of EPs following TLPs leads to improvements in TLE manifestations, including the patient's mental state, SDs, and social adaptation.

Objective: to explore traditional healers’ views on epilepsy management in collaboration with health professionals in South Africa rural communities.

Material and methods. A qualitative research approach using explorative, descriptive and contextual designs was adopted for the study in Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces. Non-probability, snowball purposive sampling was used to sample 20 traditional healers. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews at the participants’ homes and analysed using Tesch's eight steps of open coding data analysis.

Results. Findings revealed two themes, namely: a perspective on collaboration in epilepsy treatment and strategies to enhance its implementation. Most traditional healers were unaware of the official collaboration in managing epilepsy. When they found out about it, most of them were willing to collaborate with health professionals.

Conclusion. There is a need to strengthen mutual respect, open dialogue, mutual referral and capacity building to achieve collaboration in managing epilepsy effectively.

Background. Radical treatment of malignant neoplasms (MNs) of female reproductive system often has serious consequences. Chronic pain syndrome, distress, anxiety and depression, decreased self-esteem, sexual dysfunction and social maladjustment reduce quality of life (QoL) and require psychotherapeutic support.
Objective: to create an algorithm for the provision of comprehensive psychotherapeutic support during rehabilitation following the treatment of reproductive system MNs and to evaluate its effect on QoL indicators in women with neuropsychiatric disorders.
Material and methods. The algorithm for the provision of comprehensive psychotherapeutic support included clinical interview, cognitive behavioral therapy, visualization, audio therapy, art therapy, group and individual psychotherapy, family psychotherapy, image therapy. The QoL indicators were determined by questionnaires using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – General (FACT-G) with nosology-specific extensions (subscales of physical well-being, social/family well-being, emotional wellbeing and functional well-being), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Kupperman–Uvarova Modified Menopausal Index (MMI). The follow-up period was 1 year after radical surgical treatment of reproductive system MNs in different localizations. The main group received the algorithm for the provision of comprehensive psychotherapeutic support as part of active medical rehabilitation, the comparison group received basic rehabilitation.
Results. The study included 47 women with vulvar cancer (VC): active rehabilitation group (VC-1) – 24 patients and basic rehabilitation group (VC-2) – 23 patients; 61 women with endometrial cancer (EC): active rehabilitation group (EC-1) – 29 patients and basic rehabilitation group (EC-2) – 32 patients; 103 women with cervical cancer (CC): active rehabilitation group (CC-1) – 51 patients and basic rehabilitation group (CC-2) – 52 patients; 62 women with stages I–II ovarian cancer (OC) and low malignant potential tumor (LMPT): active rehabilitation group (LMPT-1) – 29 patients and basic rehabilitation group (LMPT-2) – 33 patients. Differences in physical, social/family and functional well-being (FACT-G) were significant from the 6th month and in emotional well-being – by the end of follow-up. Neurovegetative and psycho-emotional disorders, as assessed by Kupperman–Uvarova MMI, showed significant positive dynamics in women who received the algorithm for the provision of comprehensive psychotherapeutic support, in contrast to the comparison group, where these indicators remained without significant dynamics or worsened by the end of the follow-up period. The HADS scores during psychotherapeutic support decreased to normal values at the 6–12th months of follow-up, while those who received the basic rehabilitation continued to have subclinical anxiety and depression.
Conclusion. The developed algorithm for psychotherapeutic support as part of active medical rehabilitation of women who underwent radical treatment for reproductive system MNs (VC, EC, CC, OC, and LMPT) has demonstrated its effectiveness, justifuing its implementation in clinical practice.

The article presents the clinical cases of 6 patients with epilepsy, psychomotor and speech developmental delay. The heterozygous variants of the nucleotide sequence in SPTAN1 gene were detected by whole exome sequencing. Mutations in SPTAN1 gene have been described in patients with developmental and epileptic encephalopathy 5 (ОMIM: 613477). The clinical history, electroencephalographic and magnetic resonance imaging data of our patients are similar in children with variants in SPTAN1 gene described previously. It was shown that variants in SPTAN1 gene located closer to the C-terminal region are associated with a more severe phenotype, whereas the variants near the N-region – with a milder course of the disease without structural brain anomalies. However, further research is necessary in the future to better understand genotype-phenotypic correlations in SPTAN1-associated encephalopathy.

Background. The association between the protocadherin-19 (PCDH19) gene and epilepsy suggests that the X-linked inherited form of its pathogenic variant affects only women. Recent data has described males with somatic mosaicism, whose clinical picture is similar to the common manifestations in females.

Objective: to report on three new cases of PCDH19 clustering epilepsy in male patients.

Material and methods. Clinical data were collected from different centers through personal communication between authors, which means that the structured cohort was not tested. For all patients a next generation sequencing-based custom epilepsy gene panel and whole-exome sequencing by NextSeq 500 (Illumina Inc., USA) were performed.

Results. All patients had a previously described mosaic variants in PCDH19 gene (NM_001184880.1). According to the electroencefalographic data, all patients had a diffuse slowdown of the background rhythm, interictal regional/multiregional epileptiform activity and ictal focal pattern in the frontotemporal regions. Brain magnetic resonance imaging at the age of 3 years showed delayed myelination without focal abnormalities in 2 patients.

Conclusion. Early recognition of the above features should improve early diagnosis and long-term management of patients with epilepsy and PCDH19 mutations.

Stimulus-induced rhythmic, periodic, or ictal discharges (SIRPIDs) represent a relatively common phenomenon recorded during a long-term electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring allowing to capture the altered state and response to auditory, tactile or nociceptive stimulation in critically ill patients. It is a nosologically non-specific phenomenon, and its relation to ictal event remains debated. We present a clinical case in which SIRPIDs were recorded in the affected dominant hemisphere in response to low-frequency photostimulation in a 60-years-old woman recovering after middle cerebral artery stroke. No ictal events were recorded during routine EEG monitoring; the patient was not in critical condition.

The brain is extremely complicated three dimensional structures made up of interconnected neurons and neuroglia cells. It entails all type of functions of our body whether we are healthy or in disease conditions. Brain is accountable for our connectivity with the surroundings; all this is performed by an organized and systemic electrical activity of neurons by which they communicate messages to and from the brain. The abnormal electrical activity leading to the intense outburst of impulses, results in the development of epilepsy. Epilepsy is typified by recurrent, unprovoked seizures as a result excessive, hypersynchronous discharge of neurons occurs in the brain. Nearly 1% of the population throughout the worldwide is suffering from epilepsy and almost 75% begins at childhood. The patients almost one third are resistant to current available antiepileptic drugs. We don’t have the deep knowledge of the pathophysiology of the disease which can prove useful in further research for drugs with new mechanisms of action for diseases. This paper covers the role various neurotransmitters and neuropeptides in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. Our objective is to introduce the scientists with that aspect of the disease which may prove useful for further development of new drugs of epilepsy to overcome the resistance shown by the patientsorithm.

Background. Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the leading causes of chronic pain in adults, wherein half of the cases is coupled to a neuropathic component. Agents with chondroprotective properties such as chondroitin sulfate (CS) and glucosamine sulfate (GS) have been successfully used in the treatment of OA-related pain. CS/GS exhibit diverse analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and chondroregenerative effects that contribute to the restoration of cartilage tissue.
Objective: to analyze the misconceptions associated with the medical terminology used for CS/HS in the treatment of OA-related pain, approaches to standardize the quantitative and qualitative composition of CS/HS extracts.
Material and methods. Expert analysis was performed along with computational linguistics methods (sentiment analysis, i.e. analysis of text-related emotional modality). Sentiment analysis was carried out using the topological theory of data analysis and algorithms, with 90% accuracy allowing to classify texts into 16 classes of sentiment (manipulative constructs, research without positive results, propaganda, data falsification, etc.). This technique was tested earlier on 20 million publications retrieved from PubMed/MEDLINE database.
Results. In recent years, the use of highly dubious terms such as “symptomatic slow acting drug for osteoarthritis, SYSADOA”, etc., has been extensively promoted at certain international conferences. The introduction of such barely scientific terms is not justified neither by the results of basic research nor clinical practice. Using the methods of computational linguistics and data mining of the biomedical literature, we have shown that some misconceptions actively promoted at the so-called "grand conferences" and "international congresses" virtually lack in real-world published scientific literature. Such misconceptions, logically contradicting the entire system of other medical terms, confuse scientific terminology. Moreover, texts promoting this misconceptions are easily recognized as manipulative not only by experts in the analysis of medical literature, but also by artificial intelligence algorithms.
Conclusion. A number of misconceptions associated with inadequate interpretation of data obtained during basic and clinical studies of CS/GS has been explored. Specific examples show how practitioners can distinguish between manipulative propaganda and a balanced presentation of research data.