Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Nov 2005
Asymmetry of critical closing pressure following head injury.
Critical closing pressure (CCP) is the arterial pressure below which the vessels collapse. Hypothetically it is the sum of intracranial pressure (ICP) and vessel wall tension in the cerebral circulation. This study investigated transhemispherical asymmetry of CCP by studying its correlation with radiological findings on computed tomography (CT) scans in head injury patients. ⋯ Critical closing pressure is disturbed by localised brain lesions. Its asymmetry corresponds to asymmetrical findings on CT scans. CCP seems to describe vascular resistance better than ICP.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Nov 2005
Neurovascular relationship at the trigeminal root entry zone in persistent idiopathic facial pain: findings from MRI 3D visualisation.
Patients with atypical neuralgia or atypical facial pain have been surgically treated with microvascular decompression (MVD) of the trigeminal root entry zone (TREZ). There are no data regarding the sensitivity and specificity of a vessel-TREZ relationship as a cause of pain in patients with persistent idiopathic facial pain (PIFP) according to the definition given by the International Headache Society (IHS). ⋯ On the basis of the low sensitivity and specificity found in the present study, PIFP cannot be attributed to a vessel-TREZ contact, and therefore, pain relief after MVD cannot be expected.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Oct 2005
Epstein-Barr virus and disease activity in multiple sclerosis.
To study in relapsing-remitting (RR) multiple sclerosis (MS) whether exacerbations and brain activity as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are associated with plasma levels of anti-Epstein Barr (EBV) antibodies and EBV DNA. ⋯ There was no evidence for increased clinical disease activity in the subgroup of MS patients with serological signs of EBV reactivation. However, the observation that chronic EBV reactivation may be associated with increased inflammatory activity as assessed by gadolinium enhanced MRI lesions should be reproduced in a larger and independent dataset.