The Story Behind the First Mini-BEAM Photon Radiation Treatment: What is the Mini-Beam and Why is it Such an Advance?

Radiation treatment has been the cornerstone in cancer management. However, long term treatment-related morbidity always accompanies tumor control which has significant impact on quality of life of the patient who has survived the cancer. Spatially fractionated radiation has the potential to achieve both cure and to avoid dreaded long term sequelae.

Pediatric intracranial tuberculoma: illustrative case.

Background: Tuberculosis is an airborne disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Intracranial tuberculoma is a rare complication of extrapulmonary tuberculosis due to hematogenous spread to subpial and subependymal regions. Intracranial tuberculoma can occur with or without meningitis.

Simultaneous Presentation of Glioblastoma Multiforme in Divorced Spouses.

High-grade gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors in adults. However, with an incidence of 4/100,000 per year, glioblastoma multiforme is uncommon enough to make simultaneous presentation of identical tumors in husband and wife exceedingly rare. We report the fourth couple in the literature presenting with malignant astrocytomas concurrently.

Parkinsonism in essential tremor cases: A clinicopathological study.

Background: Essential tremor and Parkinson's syndrome are two common movement disorders that may co-occur in some individuals. There is no diagnostic neuropathology for essential tremor, but in PD and other Parkinson's syndrome variants, the neuropathology is well known. The spectrum of Parkinson's syndrome variants associated with essential tremor, their clinical features, and course have not been determined in autopsy-confirmed cases.

Adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP): Integrating the literature on hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with spheroids (HDLS) and pigmentary orthochromatic leukodystrophy (POLD).

Adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP) is a progressive degenerative white matter disorder. ALSP was previously recognized as two distinct entities, hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with spheroids (HDLS) and pigmentary orthochromatic leukodystrophy (POLD). However, recent identification of mutations in the tyrosine kinase domain of the colony stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) gene, which regulates mononuclear cell lineages including microglia, have provided genetic and mechanistic evidence that POLD and HDLS should be regarded as a single clinicopathologic entity.

KCC3 axonopathy: neuropathological features in the central and peripheral nervous system.

Hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy associated with agenesis of the corpus callosum (HMSN/ACC) is an autosomal recessive disease of the central and peripheral nervous system that presents as early-onset polyneuropathy. Patients are hypotonic and areflexic from birth, with abnormal facial features and atrophic muscles. Progressive peripheral neuropathy eventually confines them to a wheelchair in the second decade of life, and death occurs by the fourth decade.

Fetal microglial phenotype in vitro carries memory of prior in vivo exposure to inflammation.

Objective: Neuroinflammation in utero may result in life-long neurological disabilities. The molecular mechanisms whereby microglia contribute to this response remain incompletely understood.

Methods: Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or saline were administered intravenously to non-anesthetized chronically instrumented near-term fetal sheep to model fetal inflammation in vivo.

Recommended Methods for Brain Processing and Quantitative Analysis in Rodent Developmental Neurotoxicity Studies.

Neuropathology methods in rodent developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) studies have evolved with experience and changing regulatory guidance. This article emphasizes principles and methods to promote more standardized DNT neuropathology evaluation, particularly procurement of highly homologous brain sections and collection of the most reproducible morphometric measurements. To minimize bias, brains from all animals at all dose levels should be processed from brain weighing through paraffin embedding at one time using a counterbalanced design.

Human Parechovirus 3 Meningitis and Fatal Leukoencephalopathy.

Human parechovirus 3 (HPeV3) is a picornavirus associated with neurologic disease in neonates. Human parechovirus 3 infection of preterm and term infants is associated with seizures and destructive periventricular white matter lesions. Despite unremarkable cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), HPeV3 RNA can be amplified from CSF and nasopharyngeal and rectal swabs.

Lactate storm marks cerebral metabolism following brain trauma.

Brain metabolism is thought to be maintained by neuronal-glial metabolic coupling. Glia take up glutamate from the synaptic cleft for conversion into glutamine, triggering glial glycolysis and lactate production. This lactate is shuttled into neurons and further metabolized.

Synaptogenesis in the foetal and neonatal cerebellar system. 2. Pontine nuclei and cerebellar cortex.

Precise temporal and spatial sequences of synaptogenesis were demonstrated in 172 human foetuses and neonates post-mortem in transverse paraffin sections of pons and cerebellar vermis and hemispheres, using synaptophysin immunoreactivity of this protein of synaptic vesicular walls. The pontine nuclei exhibit a transitory patchy pattern not predicted from the uniform histology and reminiscent of the corpus striatum; synaptic vesicle reactivity appears at 20 weeks and is uniform by 34 weeks. In the cerebellar cortex, the vermis matures sooner than the cerebellar hemispheres and the paravermal portions earlier than the lateral folia.

Sequence of synaptogenesis in the fetal and neonatal cerebellar system - part 1: Guillain-Mollaret triangle (dentato-rubro-olivo-cerebellar circuit).

Precise temporal and spatial sequences of synaptogenesis occur in the cerebellar system, as in other synaptic circuits of the brain. In postmortem brain sections of 172 human fetuses and neonates, synaptophysin immunoreactivity was studied in nuclei of the Guillain-Mollaret triangle: dentato-olivo-rubro-cerebellar circuit. Synaptophysin demonstrates not only progressive increase in synaptic vesicles in each structure, but also shows the development of shape from amorphous globular neuronal aggregates to undulated nuclei.

Synaptogenesis in the fetal corpus striatum, globus pallidus, and substantia nigra: correlations with striosomes of Graybiel and dyskinesias in premature infants.

Synaptogenesis can be detected in tissue sections by immunoreactivity for synaptophysin, a synaptic vesicle glycoprotein that serves as a marker of synaptic maturation. Reactivity was prospectively studied postmortem in sections of the striatum, globus pallidus, and substantia nigra in 172 normal human fetuses and neonates of 6 to 41 weeks' gestation. Caudate nucleus and putamen show patchy reactivity beginning at 13 weeks' gestation around some intracapsular neurons; the pattern is well developed in all regions before midgestation.

Neuronal Intranuclear Inclusion Disease presenting as juvenile Parkinsonism.

Background: Diagnostic considerations for juvenile onset Parkinsonism (onset at < 21 years of age) include juvenile Huntington disease, Wilson disease, dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA), storage diseases, and mitochondrial cytopathies. Neuronal Intranuclear Inclusion Disease (NIID) must also be considered.

Case Report: We present a case of juvenile onset NIID with a predominantly Parkinsonian presentation, followed later by corticospinal, cerebellar, and lower motor neuron symptoms.

Oligodendroglioma cell lines containing t(1;19)(q10;p10).

Investigating the biology of oligodendroglioma and its characteristic combined deletion of chromosomal arms 1p and 19q, mediated by an unbalanced translocation, t(1;19)(q10;p10), has been hampered by the lack of cell lines that harbor these traits. We grew cells from 2 anaplastic oligodendrogliomas in serum-free conditions. Serial propagation and expansion led to the establishment of permanent cell lines that maintained the genetic signature of the parent oligodendrogliomas and displayed features of brain tumor stem cells in vitro.

Long-term dietary restriction influences plasma ghrelin and GOAT mRNA level in rats.

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of chronic dietary restriction on the physical characteristics of the intestine and gut-derived satiety hormone production. Male Wistar rats (8 weeks) were randomized to ad libitum (AL) or 35% dietary restriction (DR) for 5 months. At the end of the study, physical measurements were made on the intestine and satiety hormone secretion and mRNA expression determined.

Proliferation of human glioblastoma stem cells occurs independently of exogenous mitogens.

Primary glial tumors of the central nervous system, most commonly glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), are aggressive lesions with a dismal prognosis. Despite identification and isolation of human brain tumor stem cells (BTSCs), characteristics that distinguish BTSCs from neural stem cells remain to be elucidated. We cultured cells isolated from gliomas, using the neurosphere culture system, to understand their growth requirements.

Truncation of the krebs cycle during hypoglycemic coma.

There is a misconception that hypoglycemic nerve cell death occurs easily, and can happen in the absence of coma. In fact, coma is the prerequisite for neuronal death, which occurs via metabolic excitatory amino acid release. The focus on nerve cell death does not explain how most brain neurons and all glia survive.

Calcification and endothelialization of thrombi in acute stroke.

We report chronic histopathological features in thrombi mechanically retrieved from five acute ischemic stroke patients with a median age of 68 years and a median pretreatment National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score of 13. Early endothelialization occurred over and within the thrombus, and calcifications were seen, in addition to the usual acute laminar fibrin, intervening red blood cells, and neutrophils. The effectiveness of tissue plasminogen activator in clot dissolution might be affected by these features, if extensive.