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Diagnostics
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Advances in Diagnostic Options and Treatment Strategies for Neurological Disorders
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Advances in Diagnostic Options and Treatment Strategies for Neurological Disorders

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Clinical Diagnosis and Prognosis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 1098

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Julia Koehn

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Neurology, ANregiomed, 91522 Ansbach, Germany
Interests: neurology; epilepticus; brain injury
Dr. Jenny Stritzelberger

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Interests: glioblastoma; neurology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue. It will focus on recent developments in diagnostic methods for prevalent neurological conditions such as ischemic stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and primary headache syndromes.

With the growing burden of neurological diseases—which account for a significant proportion of disability and lost patient years worldwide—there is an urgent need to improve diagnostic accuracy, accessibility, and timeliness. This Special Issue aims to gather high-quality original research, reviews, short communications, and interesting images that highlight innovative diagnostic tools, imaging techniques, biomarker studies, and integrative diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in clinical neurology.

We welcome submissions that bridge clinical practice and diagnostic innovation, offering insights that can be directly translated into improved patient care.

Dr. Julia Koehn
Guest Editor

Dr. Jenny Stritzelberger
Co-Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diagnostics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • neuroscience
  • diagnostic tools
  • point-of-care testing
  • prehospital care
  • emergency medicine
  • rapid and accurate diagnosis
  • treatment strategies

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 704 KB  
Article
If You Care About Autonomic Modulation—Do Not Let Seizure Seizure
by Matthias C. Borutta, Vayra Royle, Christina Rothballer, Florian Kraemer, Stephanie Gollwitzer, Hajo Hamer, Stefan Schwab and Julia Koehn
Diagnostics 2026, 16(5), 698; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics16050698 - 27 Feb 2026
Viewed by 231
Abstract
Background: To assess associations between possible dysfunction of autonomic cardiovascular modulation and hemispheric localization, seizure frequency, disease duration, and antiseizure medication (ASM) in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Methods: In this prospective observational study, cardiovascular autonomic modulation was monitored in 31 patients [...] Read more.
Background: To assess associations between possible dysfunction of autonomic cardiovascular modulation and hemispheric localization, seizure frequency, disease duration, and antiseizure medication (ASM) in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Methods: In this prospective observational study, cardiovascular autonomic modulation was monitored in 31 patients with TLE (12 patients with right TLE, 19 patients with left TLE). From 5 min time series of R–R intervals (RRI) and blood pressure (BP) recordings, we calculated autonomic parameters of sympathetic, parasympathetic, and total autonomic cardiovascular modulation. Data were compared to those of 30 healthy volunteers. Subgroup analyses were performed according to (1) disease localization (right vs. left hemispheric TLE), (2) seizure frequency (< vs. >1/month) and disease duration (< vs. >10 years), (3) number of ASMs, and (4) participants’ age (< vs. >30 years). Results: Between right TLE patients, left TLE patients, and controls, there were no significant differences in the assessed bio-signals. Parameters of sympathetic and total autonomic modulation were slightly lower in right TLE patients than in controls. Additionally, reduced vagal modulation was observed in right TLE patients taking three ASMs or not taking any ASMs at all (applicable to one patient) compared to healthy controls. In general, TLE patients with <1 seizure/month showed lower parameters of sympathetic modulation than healthy controls, with differences reaching statistical significance in left TLE patients. In contrast, parameters reflecting vagal tone showed insignificantly, yet consistently, lower values in left TLE patients with increasing seizure frequency. Alterations in autonomic cardiovascular modulation observed across age-matched subgroups were comparable. Conclusions: A trend towards lower values of sympathetic modulation in patients with right TLE supports previous findings suggesting right hemispheric mediation of sympathetic regulation. A decrease in parasympathetic modulation with increasing seizure frequency underscores the importance of sufficient seizure control in order to prevent autonomic complications. In contrast, the absence of significant associations between disease duration and autonomic alterations suggests that epilepsy exerts an early and clinically relevant effect on the autonomic nervous system. Due to comparable alterations in autonomic modulation in a patient without antiseizure medication and in patients undergoing polytherapy, ASM side effects may not account solely for the observed autonomic dysregulation of our TLE patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Diagnostic Options and Treatment Strategies for Neurological Disorders)
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35 pages, 5808 KB  
Article
Dynamic Mode Decomposition-Based Clustered Pattern Projection for Reliable Alzheimer’s Disease Detection from EEG
by Jong-Hyeon Seo, Hunseok Kang, Jacob Kang and Aymen I. Zreikat
Diagnostics 2026, 16(4), 530; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics16040530 - 10 Feb 2026
Viewed by 312
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Detecting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from normal aging using eyes-open (EO) EEG is challenging due to stimulus-driven nonstationarity and fragmented oscillatory responses. This study aims to determine whether prototype-based representations derived from Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) can improve AD detection from EO photostimulation [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Detecting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from normal aging using eyes-open (EO) EEG is challenging due to stimulus-driven nonstationarity and fragmented oscillatory responses. This study aims to determine whether prototype-based representations derived from Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) can improve AD detection from EO photostimulation EEG. Methods: We propose a DMD-based framework termed DMD-based Clustered Pattern Projection (DMD-CPP). Segment-wise DMD representations were clustered to learn class-specific medoid prototypes, and each EEG epoch was encoded as a vector of cosine-similarity coordinates with respect to these prototypes. A linear SVM classifier was trained on the resulting DMD-CPP features and evaluated under strict leave-one-subject-out validation. Results: The DMD-CPP model achieved competitive classification accuracy and, importantly, enhanced margin-based reliability. In EO photostimulation, AD versus healthy control classification showed a pronounced improvement, characterized by wider and more asymmetric decision margins, particularly assigning low confidence to normal epochs misclassified as AD. Tasks involving frontotemporal dementia also showed improvement, although the effect was less pronounced than for AD. Conclusions: Clustering-based pattern projection has been shown to stabilize EEG dynamics and provide an interpretable, confidence-aware feature representation. These findings suggest that DMD-CPP offers a promising framework for reliable AD detection from EO EEG, where conventional spectral methods typically struggle. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Diagnostic Options and Treatment Strategies for Neurological Disorders)
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9 pages, 482 KB  
Article
Comprehensive Agreement Analysis of Colorimetric and Turbidimetric Total Protein Assays in Cerebrospinal Fluid
by Raffaella Candeloro, Ilaria Ghidini Begliardi, Alice Lodi, Giovanna Negri, Sara Ghisellini and Massimiliano Castellazzi
Diagnostics 2026, 16(1), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics16010112 - 29 Dec 2025
Viewed by 320
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Accurate measurement of total protein (TP) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is crucial for diagnosing various neurological conditions. This study aims to evaluate the concordance between a routine colorimetric method and a recently introduced turbidimetric method for measuring CSF TP. Methods: [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Accurate measurement of total protein (TP) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is crucial for diagnosing various neurological conditions. This study aims to evaluate the concordance between a routine colorimetric method and a recently introduced turbidimetric method for measuring CSF TP. Methods: We measured 161 CSF samples using both methods, analyzing the whole population and two subgroups: normal (≤500 mg/L) and pathological (>500 mg/L). Agreement was assessed using Lin’s Concordance Correlation Coefficient (CCC), Bland–Altman, and Deming regression, while clinical concordance was determined with Cohen’s Kappa. Results: The concentrations obtained from the two methods did not differ significantly and were well-correlated across the population and subgroups. The CCC for the entire dataset was 0.9881 (substantial agreement), while the Bland–Altman analysis showed a mean bias of 4.467 mg/L. For the “normal” subgroup (n = 97), the CCC was 0.8722 (poor agreement), with a mean bias of 7.668 mg/L. In the “pathological” subgroup (n = 64), the CCC was 0.9858 (substantial agreement) with a mean bias of −3.838 mg/L. Demin regression did not show statistically significant proportional or constant bias in the whole population. However, a stratified analysis revealed a significant negative constant bias in the “normal” subgroup in absence of significant bias in the “pathological” subgroup. Cohen’s kappa was 0.804, indicating substantial agreement. Conclusions: Both methods showed substantial agreement for quantifying CSF TP and clinical classification, supporting their potential interchangeability for diagnostic purposes. Nonetheless, laboratories should note the presence of bias, particularly for samples near the clinical cut-off value. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Diagnostic Options and Treatment Strategies for Neurological Disorders)
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