Disrupted brain network functional dynamics and hyper-correlation of structural and functional connectome topology in patients with breast cancer prior to treatment.

Introduction: Several previous studies have demonstrated that cancer chemotherapy is associated with brain injury and cognitive dysfunction. However, evidence suggests that cancer pathogenesis alone may play a role, even in non-CNS cancers.

Methods: Using a multimodal neuroimaging approach, we measured structural and functional connectome topology as well as functional network dynamics in newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer.

Effect of delayed intermittent ventricular drainage on ventriculomegaly and neurological deficits in experimental neonatal hydrocephalus.

Purpose: Evidence-based guidelines do not indicate when ventricular reservoirs should be placed in children with neonatal hydrocephalus, and delayed intervention is common. We hypothesize that delayed ventricular drainage has adverse effects on structural development and functional outcomes.

Methods: Using a well-established animal model of kaolin-induced obstructive hydrocephalus, we evaluated neurologic deficit after early (~1 week post-kaolin) or late (~2 weeks post-kaolin) placement of ventricular reservoirs which were tapped according to strict neurologic criteria.

Reactive astrocytosis, microgliosis and inflammation in rats with neonatal hydrocephalus.

The deleterious effects of hydrocephalus, a disorder that primarily affects children, include reactive astrocytosis, microgliosis and inflammatory responses; however, the roles that these mechanisms play in the pathophysiology of hydrocephalus are still not clear in terms of cytopathology and gene expression. Therefore we have examined neuroinflammation at both the cellular and the molecular levels in an experimental model of neonatal obstructive hydrocephalus. On post-natal day 1, rats received an intracisternal injection of kaolin to induce hydrocephalus; control animals received saline injections.