Late Ebola virus relapse causing meningoencephalitis: a case report.

Background: There are thousands of survivors of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa. Ebola virus can persist in survivors for months in immune-privileged sites; however, viral relapse causing life-threatening and potentially transmissible disease has not been described. We report a case of late relapse in a patient who had been treated for severe Ebola virus disease with high viral load (peak cycle threshold value 13.

Fully automatic segmentation of the hippocampus and the amygdala from MRI using hybrid prior knowledge.

The segmentation of macroscopically ill-defined and highly variable structures, such as the hippocampus Hc and the amygdala Am, from MRI requires specific constraints. Here, we describe and evaluate a hybrid segmentation method that uses knowledge derived from a probabilistic atlas and from anatomical landmarks based on stable anatomical characteristics of the structures. Combined in a previously published semi-automatic segmentation method, they lead to a fast, robust and accurate fully automatic segmentation of Hc and Am.

Cerebral damage in epilepsy: a population-based longitudinal quantitative MRI study.

Purpose: Whether cerebral damage results from epileptic seizures remains a contentious issue. We report on the first longitudinal community-based quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study to investigate the effect of seizures on the hippocampus, cerebellum, and neocortex.

Methods: One hundred seventy-nine patients with epilepsy (66 temporal lobe epilepsy, 51 extratemporal partial epilepsy, and 62 generalized epilepsy) and 90 control subjects underwent two MRI brain scans 3.

Serial imaging of the brain.

Epilepsy is a heterogeneous condition and it is likely that susceptibility factors and genetic predisposition interact with acquired influences such as seizures, AEDs, cerebral insults, subclinical seizures,and ongoing neurodegenerative processes to render certain individuals selectively vulnerable to cerebral damage. There is currently in substantial evidence to suggest that neuroprotective treatments that rely entirely on their anticonvulsant properties are sufficient to prevent the development of cerebral atrophy. The development of postprocessing techniques in serial imaging studies have allowed the detection of subtle changes, and it is likely that development of more sensitive imaging techniques with higher-strength MR magnets and novel MR contrasts will expand our understanding of the factors that render an individual susceptible to hippocampal and extratemporal atrophy.

Automatic segmentation of the brain and intracranial cerebrospinal fluid in T1-weighted volume MRI scans of the head, and its application to serial cerebral and intracranial volumetry.

A new fully automatic algorithm for the segmentation of the brain and total intracranial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from T(1)-weighted volume MRI scans of the head, called Exbrain v.2, is described. The algorithm was developed in the context of serial intracranial volumetry.

Progressive neocortical damage in epilepsy.

Our objective was to determine the pattern and extent of generalized and focal neocortical atrophy that develops in patients with epilepsy and the factors associated with such changes. As part of a prospective, longitudinal follow-up study of 122 patients with chronic epilepsy, 68 newly diagnosed patients, and 90 controls, serial magnetic resonance imaging scans were obtained 3.5 years apart.

The structural consequences of newly diagnosed seizures.

Intractable epilepsy may be associated with widespread structural cerebral damage. We determined whether structural damage occurs to the hippocampus, cerebellum and neocortex in the first few years following a diagnosis of seizures. Sixty-eight patients over the age of 14 years with newly diagnosed seizures and 90 matched controls underwent serial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans 3.