Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Preoperative fMRI predicts memory decline following anterior temporal lobe resection.
Anterior temporal lobe resection (ATLR) benefits many patients with refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) but may be complicated by material specific memory impairments, typically of verbal memory following left ATLR, and non-verbal memory following right ATLR. Preoperative memory functional MRI (fMRI) may help in the prediction of these deficits. ⋯ These findings suggest that preoperative memory fMRI may be a useful non-invasive predictor of postoperative memory change following ATLR and provide support for the functional adequacy theory of hippocampal function. They also suggest that fMRI may provide additional information, over that provided by neuropsychology, for use in the prediction of postoperative memory decline.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Effects of subthalamic deep brain stimulation on noun/verb generation and selection from competing alternatives in Parkinson's disease.
Impaired generation of verbs relative to nouns has been reported in Parkinson's disease (PD) and has been associated with the frontal pathophysiology of PD. The aim of the present study was to measure noun/verb generation abilities in PD and to determine whether noun/verb generation is affected by stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN). ⋯ Our results suggest that STN stimulation affects the ability to select from many competing lexical alternatives during verb generation.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jun 2008
Genes involved in the transforming growth factor beta signalling pathway and the risk of intracranial aneurysms.
The 19q13.3 locus for intracranial aneurysms (IA) partly overlaps with the 19q13 locus for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). A common genetic risk factor located in this locus for the two aneurysm types seems plausible. The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) signalling pathway plays a role in aortic aneurysms but may also play a role in aneurysms in general. In the combined region of the 19q13 loci for IA and AAA we identified two candidate genes that are both involved in the TGF-beta signalling pathway: hepsin (HPN) and the latent transforming growth factor beta-binding protein 4 (LTBP4). We hypothesised that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the HPN and LTBP4 genes are associated with IA. ⋯ Our findings suggest that variations in or near the HPN and LTBP4 genes do not play a role in the susceptibility to IA in the Dutch population.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · May 2008
Atypical and anaplastic meningiomas: prognostic implications of clinicopathological features.
To evaluate patient outcome and investigate the prognostic factors of high-grade meningiomas by adopting the 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) classification system. ⋯ The 2000 WHO classification has identified the truly aggressive meningiomas better than did the previous criteria. A precise meningioma grading system may help to avoid over-treatment of patients with an atypical meningioma as, once the tumour has "declared itself" by recurrence and histological features, it becomes a tumour that is poorly amenable to current therapies.