1h-MNM can record simultaneously VEEG/aEEG/SEP-C in newborn infants, showing the modulation of SEP cortical responses in relation to behavioural states in all infants studied using an appropriate neonatal method. We emphasize the importance of obtaining neonatal SEP-C normative data to better identify pathological findings in neonatal brain injury.

Our MUS study provides new data on physiological muscle structural changes in healthy children to address the limited available references in this age group. Muscle Nerve 58: 245-250, 2018.

The sensory-motor conduction parameters were clearly related to gestational age, but extrauterine life did not affect the maturation of the peripheral nervous system in the very preterm babies who were neurologically healthy.

Background Critical illness polyneuropathy and myopathy (CIPNM) is a frequent neurological manifestation in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) infection. CIPNM diagnosis is usually limited to clinical evaluation. We compared patients with ARDS from COVID‐19 and other aetiologies, in whom a neurophysiological evaluation for the detection of CIPNM was performed. The aim was to determine if there were any differences between these two groups in frequency of CINPM and outcome at discharge from the intensive care unit (ICU). Materials and Methods This was a single‐centre retrospective study performed on mechanically ventilated patients consecutively admitted (January 2016‐June 2020) to the ICU of Careggi Hospital, Florence, Italy, with ARDS of different aetiologies. Neurophysiological evaluation was performed on patients with stable ventilation parameters, but marked widespread hyposthenia (Medical Research Council score <48). Creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) and mean morning glycaemic values were collected. Results From a total of 148 patients, 23 with COVID‐19 infection and 21 with ARDS due to other aetiologies, underwent electroneurography/electromyography (ENG/EMG) recording. Incidence of CIPNM was similar in the two groups, 65% (15 of 23) in COVID‐19 patients and 71% (15 of 21) in patients affected by ARDS of other aetiologies. At ICU discharge, subjects with CIPNM more frequently required ventilatory support, regardless the aetiology of ARDS. Conclusion ENG/EMG represents a useful tool in the identification of the neuromuscular causes underlying ventilator wean failure and patient stratification. A high incidence of CIPNM, with a similar percentage, has been observed in ARDS patients of all aetiologies.

In Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), the early detection of neonatal seizures is of utmost importance for a timely clinical intervention. Over the years, several neonatal seizure detection systems were proposed to detect neonatal seizures automatically and speed up seizure diagnosis, most based on the EEG signal analysis. Recently, research has focused on other possible seizure markers, such as electrocardiography (ECG). This work proposes an ECG-based NSD system to investigate the usefulness of heart rate variability (HRV) analysis to detect neonatal seizures in the NICUs. HRV analysis is performed considering time-domain, frequency-domain, entropy and multiscale entropy features. The performance is evaluated on a dataset of ECG signals from 51 full-term babies, 29 seizure-free. The proposed system gives results comparable to those reported in the literature: Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve = 62%, Sensitivity = 47%, Specificity = 67%. Moreover, the system’s performance is evaluated in a real clinical environment, inevitably affected by several artefacts. To the best of our knowledge, our study proposes for the first time a multi-feature ECG-based NSD system that also offers a comparative analysis between babies suffering from seizures and seizure-free ones.