Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
-
A 42-year-old man was admitted complaining of the sudden onset of headache, vomiting, vertigo, and gait disturbance. The authors found hemiparesis of his right limbs, right Homer's syndrome, and decreased pain and temperature sensation of his right face and left limbs. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) showed an acute small infarct located on the right side of the lateral lower medulla. This is the first report of Opalski's syndrome with lower medullary infarction detected by DWI.
-
Residual blood flow around thrombus prior to treatment predicts success of coronary thrombolysis. The authors aimed to correlate the presence of residual flow signals in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) with completeness of recanalization after intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (TPA). ⋯ Patients with detectable residual flow signals before IV TPA bolus are twice as likely to have early complete recanalization. Those with no detectable residual flow signals have less than 20% chance for complete early recanalization with intravenous TPA and may be candidates for intra-arterial therapies.
-
Case Reports
A case study of hemispatial neglect using finite element analysis and positron emission tomography.
The authors present a patient who developed transient hemispatial neglect following surgical drainage of a large right frontotemporal arachnoid cyst. As symptoms evolved in parallel with brain shift over the subsequent months, the authors hypothesized that the disorder was associated with the appearance of mechanical stresses in the cerebral mantle. ⋯ The authors conclude that brain deformation was a contributing factor in the reversible neglect syndrome by compromising the normal flow of blood and/or the deactivation of subcortical circuits of the parietal lobe.
-
Case Reports
Development of a posterior fossa cavernous malformation associated with bilateral venous anomalies: case report.
Venous angiomas (VAs) and cavernous malformations (CMs) are common cerebrovascular malformations. Frequently, these lesions are found in close proximity. The interrelationship between VAs and CMs has not yet been adequately defined. ⋯ The sequential imaging suggests a causal relationship between VAs and some CMs. Furthermore, the detailed MRI permitted radiosurgical treatment of these CMs. The occurrence of de novo CMs adjacent to VAs on future imaging studies in other patients may help confirm the etiology of at least a subset of CMs.
-
Despite good clinical criteria for diagnosing optic neuritis (ON), only a few techniques can precisely assess its impact on visual brain function. The authors studied whether functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of visual activation reliably reflects the cerebral consequences of acute unilateral ON, and how fMRI correlates with clinical function and visual evoked potentials (VEPs). Twenty ON patients, before and after steroid treatment, were compared to 20 controls. ⋯ The higher stimulation frequencies yielded greater fMRI responses from unaffected eyes, but not from affected eyes, in controls. The fMRI responses were quantifiable in every subject, whereas in 11 ON eyes, no VEPs were obtained during the acute stage. The authors conclude that fMRI is sensitive to the cerebral response alteration during ON and might therefore contribute to evaluating the temporal evolution of the visual functional deficit during recovery or therapy.