Carotid Artery Dissection Induced Acute Tongue Swelling in a Cocaine User.

Carotid artery dissection represents a well-recognized cause of hypoglossal nerve paralysis even if it is less known the cause of acute tongue swelling. We report a 42-year old men who presented to our observation with acute tongue swelling and atrophy of left side of tongue from a hypoglossal nerve injury. A magnetic resonance imaging revealed a denervation of the left half of the tongue from a hypoglossal nerve injury due to left extracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) dissection, without evidence of ischemic stroke.

Exoskeleton-Robot Assisted Therapy in Stroke Patients: A Lesion Mapping Study.

: Technology-supported rehabilitation is emerging as a solution to support therapists in providing a high-intensity, repetitive and task-specific treatment, aimed at improving stroke recovery. End-effector robotic devices are known to positively affect the recovery of arm functions, however there is a lack of evidence regarding exoskeletons. This paper evaluates the impact of cerebral lesion load on the response to a validated robotic-assisted rehabilitation protocol.

The corticospinal tract profile in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

This work evaluates the potential in diagnostic application of a new advanced neuroimaging method, which delineates the profile of tissue properties along the corticospinal tract (CST) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), by means of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Twenty-four ALS patients and twenty-four demographically matched healthy subjects were enrolled in this study. The Automated Fiber Quantification (AFQ), a tool for the automatic reconstruction of white matter tract profiles, based on a deterministic tractography algorithm to automatically identify the CST and quantify its diffusion properties, was used.

Biomarkers of Eating Disorders Using Support Vector Machine Analysis of Structural Neuroimaging Data: Preliminary Results.

Presently, there are no valid biomarkers to identify individuals with eating disorders (ED). The aim of this work was to assess the feasibility of a machine learning method for extracting reliable neuroimaging features allowing individual categorization of patients with ED. Support Vector Machine (SVM) technique, combined with a pattern recognition method, was employed utilizing structural magnetic resonance images.

A new SLC20A2 mutation identified in southern Italy family with primary familial brain calcification.

Background: Primary familial brain calcification (PFBC) is a rare neurodegenerative disease characterized by bilateral calcifications mostly located in the basal ganglia and in the thalami, cerebellum and subcortical white matter. Clinical manifestations of this disease include a large spectrum of movement disorders and neuropsychiatric disturbances. PFBC is genetically heterogeneous and typically transmitted in an autosomal dominant fashion.

Automatic Detection of White Matter Hyperintensities in Healthy Aging and Pathology Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Review.

White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are commonly seen in the brain of healthy elderly subjects and patients with several neurological and vascular disorders. A truly reliable and fully automated method for quantitative assessment of WMH on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has not yet been identified. In this paper, we review and compare the large number of automated approaches proposed for segmentation of WMH in the elderly and in patients with vascular risk factors.

The relationship between regional microstructural abnormalities of the corpus callosum and physical and cognitive disability in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Significant corpus callosum (CC) involvement has been found in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), even if conventional magnetic resonance imaging measures have shown poor correlation with clinical disability measures. In this work, we tested the potential of multimodal imaging of the entire CC to explain physical and cognitive disability in 47 patients with RRMS. Values of thickness, fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were extracted from 50 regions of interest (ROIs) sampled along the bundle.

Effect of aging on magnetic resonance measures differentiating progressive supranuclear palsy from Parkinson's disease.

Imaging measurements, such as the ratio of the midsagittal areas of the midbrain and pons (midbrain/pons) and the Magnetic Resonance Parkinsonism Index (MRPI), have been proposed to differentiate progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) from Parkinson's disease (PD). However, abnormal midbrain/pons values suggestive of PSP have also been reported in elderly individuals and in patients with PD. We investigated the effect of aging on single or combined imaging measurements of the brainstem.

Fully automated segmentation of the pons and midbrain using human T1 MR brain images.

Purpose: This paper describes a novel method to automatically segment the human brainstem into midbrain and pons, called labs: Landmark-based Automated Brainstem Segmentation. LABS processes high-resolution structural magnetic resonance images (MRIs) according to a revised landmark-based approach integrated with a thresholding method, without manual interaction.

Methods: This method was first tested on morphological T1-weighted MRIs of 30 healthy subjects.

Tractography in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using a novel probabilistic tool: a study with tract-based reconstruction compared to voxel-based approach.

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is one of the most sensitive MRI tools for detecting subtle cerebral white matter abnormalities in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Nowadays a plethora of DTI tools have been proposed, but very few methods have been translated into clinical practice.

New Method: The aim of this study is to validate the objective measurement of fiber tracts as provided by a new unbiased and automated tractography reconstruction tool named as TRActs Constrained by UnderLying Anatomy (TRACULA).

Cerebellar-parietal dysfunctions in multiple sclerosis patients with cerebellar signs.

Consistent findings have shown that the cerebellum is critically implicated in a broad range of cognitive processes including executive functions. Of note, cerebellar symptoms and a number of cognitive deficits have been widely reported in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). This study investigated for the first time the role of cerebellar symptoms in modulating the neural networks associated with a cognitive task broadly used in MS patients (Paced Visual Serial Addition Test (PVSAT)).