Tongue somatosensory evoked potentials reflect midbrain involvement in patients with clinically isolated syndrome.

Aim: To test the hypothesis that tSSEP findings reflect clinical and MRI MS lesions, the aim of this study was to investigate tSSEP changes in patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) in relation to clinical and brainstem MRI findings. The second aim was to investigate whether the interpretation of the tSSEP results in the form of the tSSEP score enables better evaluation of the afferent trigeminal pathway involvement than analyzing each tSSEP parameter separately.

Methods: 115 consecutive CIS patients were enrolled from August 1, 2014 until March 1, 2016.

Delay in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in Croatia.

Background: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for multiple sclerosis (MS) recommend the time from initial presentation to first neurological evaluation to be no longer than 6 weeks, and a further 6 weeks until any necessary investigations are completed. The aim of this study was to evaluate how many patients with MS are diagnosed within the NICE timelines in two settings specific for Croatia.

Patients And Methods: All patients with the final diagnosis of clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) or MS in a 6 months period were retrospectively reviewed.

Beware of "old" Horner syndrome.

Purpose: Chronic Horner syndrome is a rare clinical condition, the etiology of which often remains undiscovered. A patient is presented with an 8-year history of Horner syndrome who was diagnosed with multiple cervical artery dissections.

Case Report: A 42-year-old woman presented to our emergency department with a severe occipital headache that woke her up from sleep 3 days earlier.

Robustness testing of live attenuated rubella vaccine potency assay using fractional factorial design of experiments.

The potency assay for the freeze-dried live attenuated rubella vaccine is a cell culture based biological assay. The aim of our study was to perform the robustness testing of the rubella vaccine potency assay prior to validation. Seven intra-assay operating conditions that could have an effect on the assay performance were identified and their influence on the overall assay variability investigated by fractional factorial design of experiments (DoE).

Primary diffuse meningeal melanomatosis.

Primary diffuse meningeal melanomatosis can clinically mimic a wide variety of other conditions, including lymphoma, leukemia, neurosarcoidosis, metastatic carcinoma, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, subacute meningitis, viral encephalitis, and idiopathic hypertrophic cranial pachymeningitis. We report on a young patient with primary diffuse meningeal melanomatosis who presented with papilledema, flaccid paraparesis, and cognitive impairment. The importance of imaging of the whole central nervous system, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, and pathohistological examination is emphasized in making the appropriate diagnosis.

Current concepts in the diagnosis of transverse myelopathies.

The clinical symptoms and MRI characteristics of transverse myelopathy (TM) due to non-compressive causes are reviewed, with special emphasis on the differential diagnosis between inflammatory demyelinating lesions, and metabolic and vascular myelopathies. Inflammatory transverse myelopathies are the commonest and most difficult ones to identify. The differentiation between clinically isolated syndromes, multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and metabolic causes is based on both clinical symptoms and paraclinical signs including magnetic resonance imaging, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, and immunological and biochemical parameters.

Parkinsonism and multiple sclerosis--is there association?

Association between multiple sclerosis (MS) and parkinsonism is rarely reported. We describe clinical, radiological and DAT scan findings in two patients presenting with parkinsonism. MRI revealed demyelinating lesions of the central nervous system consistent with MS in both patients.

Brain MRI abnormalities in ataxia-telangiectasia.

Background: Ataxia-telangiectasia (AT) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder, initially characterized by normal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Case Report: In a 34-year-old woman patient with AT, MRI revealed extensive and diffuse white matter dismyelination, T1 and T2 hypointense lesions, T1 hypointense but T2 hyperintense lesions, and numerous dilated telangiectases upon gadolinium enhancement.

Discussion: In our patient, brain MRI confirmed extensive extracerebellar lesions in AT.

Isolated cranial nerve palsies in multiple sclerosis.

Data on patients with multiple sclerosis and cranial nerve involvement as a presenting sign or a sign of disease exacerbation were retrospectively analyzed. Isolated cranial nerve involvement was present in 10.4% out of 483 patients, either as a presenting symptom (7.

Assessment of N-glycan heterogeneity of cactus glycoproteins by one-dimensional gel electrophoresis and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

Artificial environmental conditions in tissue culture, such as elevated relative humidity and rich nutrient medium, can influence and modify tissue growth and induce spontaneous changes from characteristic organization pattern to unorganized callus. As succulent plants with crassulacean acid metabolism, cacti are particularly susceptible to this altered growth environment. Glycosylated proteins of Mammillaria gracillis tissues cultivated in vitro, separated by SDS-PAGE, were detected with Con A after the transfer of proteins onto the nitrocellulose membrane.

Clinical relevance of antibodies against myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein in different clinical types of multiple sclerosis.

Objective: Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) is a highly immunogenic minor component on the outside surface of CNS myelin which is believed to be one of the autoantigens in multiple sclerosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic potential of anti-MOG IgG antibody levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) and non-inflammatory neurological diseases (NIND) as markers for the different clinical types of multiple sclerosis.

Patients And Methods: Consecutive serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples were taken from 21 patients with RRMS, 7 patients with PPMS and 19 patients with NIND.

CNS demyelination in autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases represent a diverse group of disorders that have generally of unknown etiology and poorly understood pathogenesis. They may be organ-specific or systemic, giving rise to overlapping syndromes; more than one autoimmune disease may occur in the same patient. Numerous case reports have documented that multiple sclerosis (MS) may be present concurrently with other autoimmune diseases, most commonly rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune thyroid disease, type I diabetes mellitus and pernicious anemia.

Determination of cortical language dominance using functional transcranial Doppler sonography in left-handers.

Objective: Verbal analytical functions are primarily related to the left hemisphere in right-handers, but there is yet no agreement about cortical language dominance in left-handers. Also, there are some contradictory reports about sex differences in cortical language lateralization. The aim of this study is to investigate cortical language dominance in left-handers and to explore gender influence on cortical language representation.