The goal of the present study is to investigate the relationship between the degree of cognitive impairment and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness which is measured by the optical coherence tomography (OCT). Thirty-five patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 35 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 35 healthy volunteers, between the ages of 60-87, who were examined in the neurology outpatient clinic among 2012-2013 were prospectively involved in our study. Mini mental state examination (MMSE) test, montreal cognitive assessment (MOCA), and also neuropsychological test batteries were used for the neurocognitive evaluation. RNFL thickness was measured by the OCT technique and the differences among groups were studied. The relationship between RNFL thickness and MMSE scores with demographic characteristics was investigated. RNFL thickness was significantly lower in AD and MCI groups compared with the control group (p < 0.01). No significant differences of RNFL were found between the MCI and the AD groups (p > 0.05). Significant correlation was found between MMSE scores and the RNFL values (p < 0.05). Significant thinning in RNFL along with age was detected (p < 0.05). In our study, it is thought that retinal nerve fiber degeneration and central nervous system degeneration may be concurrent according to the thinning of RNFL measured by OCT in AD and MCI groups. RNFL measurement may also be useful for early diagnosis and evaluation of the disease progression. Further studies are needed to optimize the utility of this method as an ocular biomarker in AD.

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Empathy is essential for being human for understanding and sharing other people’s affective and mood, including pain. Pain empathy is a mental ability that allows one person to understand another person’s pain and how to respond to that person effectively. The same neural structures as pain and empathy have recently been found to be involved in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. When someone witnesses other’s pain, besides the visual cortex, various parts of the nervous system activate, including the neural network of empathy. Empathy includes not only pain but also other emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, distress. These findings raised beg the question of whether empathy for pain is unique in its neural correlates. It is essential to know for revealing empathy is a specific context or in a state of chronic pain, depression or anxiety disorders. Because of this, pain empathy has been the central focus of empathy research in social neuroscience and other related fields, highlighting the importance of empathy for pain in daily life. Considering how pain plays a crucial role in the quality of life, determining its network and neurocognitive correlations in the empathy processing may provide a novel therapeutic approach for pain management. This area, which is still under investigation, can provide new information about pain. Under the recent studies and hypothesis, we have aimed to clarify the term of pain empathy, its components, and its neural correlates.

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It is well known that poor sleep quality is related with depression and anxiety. As we know, sleep quality in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)-Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) comorbidity has not been investigated in any study conducted in clinical settings in our country. In addition to determining the relationship between anxiety and depression levels with sleep quality, we conducted research determining similarities and differences between the comorbid MDD-GAD patient group and healthy control group in terms of sleep quality. In a cross-sectional study, patients who were diagnosed with MDD and GAD according to DSM-V diagnostic criteria and who did not have any other primary axis psychiatric disorder were included in the study. Individuals, who did not have a psychiatric disease according to DSM-V diagnostic criteria formed the healthy control group. The Sociodemographic Data Form, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered to 31 MDD-GAD patients and 30 healthy controls. Patients with poor sleep quality scored an average of 4,096 points higher on the BDI compared to patients with a good sleep quality (p=0,042). Depression scores showed a positive correlation of at a level of 42,5% with the PUKI Sleep Disturbances subtest (p=0,017) and 47,4% (p=0,007) Daytime Dysfunction subtest. Our study indicates that depression may be more related to sleep quality than anxiety. Problems related to sleep are shown as the first symptom that prompts many depressive patients to seek help. Detecting sleep related abnormalities can play a stimulating role for clinicians in many areas, including the risk of developing depression and implementing preventive therapy. The PSQI appears to be a very useful tool in identifying sleep related problems and can be very helpful to clinicians. Our findings reveal the importance of controlling individuals with sleep problems, especially in terms of depressive symptoms.

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