Long term outcome and fusion rate of transdiscal fixation for L5-S1 high grade spondylolisthesis.

Objective: High grade spondylolisthesis (HGS) is a quite rare entity and many techniques are available to address this condition. In 1994 Abdu et al. proposed a transdiscal fixation approach that achieved a good clinical outcome.

Does reintervention improve survival in recurrent glioblastoma? Facing a temporal bias in the literature.

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequent intraaxial malignant brain tumour, in which recurrence management is a frequent and demanding issue. Recently, reintervention has emerged as a useful tool for treatment. However, some new evidence has shown that most of the articles published could have overestimated its effects.

How I do it? Lumbar cortical bone trajectory fixation with image-guided neuronavigation.

Background: Cortical bone trajectory was described in 2009 to reduce screw loosening in osteoporotic patients. Since then, it has demonstrated improvements in biomechanical and perioperative results compared to pedicle screws, and it have been described as a minimally invasive technique.

Method: We describe our experience with the technique assisted by 3D neuronavigation and review some of the complications and tools to avoid them together with limitations and pitfalls.

Intrachiasmatic craniopharyngioma: Assessment of visual outcome with optical coherence tomography after complete surgical removal.

Background: Optic chiasm invasion by a craniopharyngioma (CP) is exceptional. Surgical treatment of intrachiasmatic CPs associates a high risk of chiasm injury, which should be properly addressed before surgery.

Case Description: We present a 46-year-old woman admitted to the hospital with low visual acuity (0.

Radiofrequency Lesions through Deep Brain Stimulation Electrodes in Movement Disorders: Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Background: Although there are few reports of radiofrequency lesions performed through deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes in patients with movement disorders, experience with this method is scarce.

Methods: We present 2 patients who had been previously treated with DBS of subthalamic nuclei (STN) and the ventral intermediate (VIM) nucleus of the thalamus for Parkinson's disease and essential tremor, respectively, and underwent a radiofrequency lesion through their DBS electrodes after developing a hardware infection. The authors conduct a review of the literature regarding this method.

Disrupted Ipsilateral Network Connectivity in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

Objective: The current practice under which patients with refractory epilepsy are surgically treated is based mainly on the identification of specific cortical areas, mainly the epileptogenic zone, which is believed to be responsible for generation of seizures. A better understanding of the whole epileptic network and its components and properties is required before more effective and less invasive therapies can be developed. The aim of the present study was to partially characterize the evolution of the functional network during the preictal-ictal transition in partial seizures in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Identification of redundant and synergetic circuits in triplets of electrophysiological data.

Objective: Neural systems are comprised of interacting units, and relevant information regarding their function or malfunction can be inferred by analyzing the statistical dependencies between the activity of each unit. While correlations and mutual information are commonly used to characterize these dependencies, our objective here is to extend interactions to triplets of variables to better detect and characterize dynamic information transfer.

Approach: Our approach relies on the measure of interaction information (II).

Assessing the equivalence between etomidate and seizure network dynamics in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Objective: Etomidate mimics some typical epileptic neurophysiological features, such as the appearance of spikes and high frequency oscillations, when it is administrated to epileptic patients. However, little is known about its influence on the underlying cortical network. An assessment of comparable cortical dynamics between seizures and etomidate would allow for a more detailed study of the network parameters underlying the ictal stage by using etomidate as a proxy.

Inhomogeneous cortical synchronization and partial epileptic seizures.

Objective: Interictal synchronization clusters have recently been described in several publications using diverse techniques, including neurophysiological recordings and fMRI, in patients suffering from epilepsy. However, little is known about the role of these hyper-synchronous areas during seizures. In this work, we report an analysis of synchronization clusters jointly with several network measures during seizure activity; we then discuss our findings in the context of prior literature.

Machine learning approach for the outcome prediction of temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.

Epilepsy surgery is effective in reducing both the number and frequency of seizures, particularly in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Nevertheless, a significant proportion of these patients continue suffering seizures after surgery. Here we used a machine learning approach to predict the outcome of epilepsy surgery based on supervised classification data mining taking into account not only the common clinical variables, but also pathological and neuropsychological evaluations.

Intracranial intermediate-grade meningeal melanocytoma with increased cellular proliferative index: an illustrative case associated with a nevus of Ota.

Solitary primary melanocytic tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) represent a spectrum of lesions ranging from well-differentiated melanocytoma to melanoma. The association of a meningeal melanocytoma with an ipsilateral nevus of Ota is extremely rare, with only six cases reported in the literature to date. Only a minority of melanocytic tumors correspond to lesions of intermediate-grade malignancy, whose biological behavior and outcome remain undetermined.

Dipole density of low-frequency and spike magnetic activity: a reliable procedure in presurgical evaluation of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Conventional visual analysis and dipole density analysis of magnetoencephalographic data for both spike and low-frequency magnetic activity were compared for presurgical evaluation in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) in a sample of 26 drug-resistant operated TLE patients. A series of logistic regression analyses were performed. Dipole density sensitivity was superior to visual localization analysis.