Cerebral aneurysms are rarely encountered in pregnancy. Their antepartum and intrapartum management remain clinically challenging, primarily due to concern regarding potential rupture. We present a case of a patient in preterm labor at risk for imminent delivery with a 10mm cerebral aneurysm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Intern Med Clin Cases
September 2023
Pituitary apoplexy can cause a chemical meningitis and its mimicry in presentation with infectious meningitis poses a diagnostic challenge. Here we report an 18-year-old woman who presented with acute headache, altered mental status, and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis, and clinically improved with antibiotics and steroids. Despite an unremarkable head computed tomography scan, brain magnetic resonance imaging showed a pituitary macroadenoma with apoplexy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The study of murine behavioral responses to visual stimuli is a key component of understanding mammalian visual circuitry. One notable response is the optokinetic reflex (OKR), a highly conserved innate behavior necessary for image stabilization on the retina. The OKR provides a robust readout of image tracking ability and has been extensively studied to understand the logic of visual system circuitry and function in mice from different genetic backgrounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe diversity of visual input processed by the mammalian visual system requires the generation of many distinct retinal ganglion cell (RGC) types, each tuned to a particular feature. The molecular code needed to generate this cell-type diversity is poorly understood. Here, we focus on the molecules needed to specify one type of retinal cell: the upward-preferring ON direction-selective ganglion cell (up-oDSGC) of the mouse visual system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patients with cancer often present with brain metastases in the setting of controlled extracranial disease, for which they receive stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and surgical resection. The role of systemic therapy after SRS is unclear. Brain metastasis indicates active cancer dissemination, and microscopic systemic disease may be present despite absence of gross disease as assessed by conventional imaging modalities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccurate motion detection requires neural circuitry that compensates for global visual field motion. Select subtypes of retinal ganglion cells perceive image motion and connect to the accessory optic system (AOS) in the brain, which generates compensatory eye movements that stabilize images during slow visual field motion. Here, we show that the murine transmembrane semaphorin 6A (Sema6A) is expressed in a subset of On direction-selective ganglion cells (On DSGCs) and is required for retinorecipient axonal targeting to the medial terminal nucleus (MTN) of the AOS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraditional models of cognitive control have explained performance monitoring as a "cold" cognitive process, devoid of emotion. In contrast to this dominant view, a growing body of clinical and experimental research indicates that cognitive control and its neural substrates, in particular the error-related negativity (ERN), are moderated by affective and motivational factors, reflecting the aversive experience of response conflict and errors. To add to this growing line of research, here we use the classic emotion regulation paradigm-a manipulation that promotes the cognitive reappraisal of emotion during task performance-to test the extent to which affective variation in the ERN is subject to emotion reappraisal, and also to explore how emotional regulation of the ERN might influence behavioral performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropsychology
January 2014
Objective: Effective decision-making is critical for resuming day-to-day activities after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). Little is known, however, about how decision-making is affected after aSAH, particularly under ambiguous conditions in which neither the outcome nor the outcome probabilities are known.
Method: Here we examined the integrity of decision-making under ambiguity in a cohort of aSAH patients classified as having made a "good outcome" according to the Glasgow Outcome Scale.
Self-affirmation produces large effects: Even a simple reminder of one's core values reduces defensiveness against threatening information. But how, exactly, does self-affirmation work? We explored this question by examining the impact of self-affirmation on neurophysiological responses to threatening events. We hypothesized that because self-affirmation increases openness to threat and enhances approachability of unfavorable feedback, it should augment attention and emotional receptivity to performance errors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerformance monitoring in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has largely been viewed as a cognitive, computational process devoid of emotion. A growing body of research, however, suggests that performance is moderated by motivational engagement and that a signal generated by the ACC, the error-related negativity (ERN), may partially reflect a distress response to errors. Although suggestive, this past work is hampered by use of correlational designs or by designs that confound affect and cognitive performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Recent studies suggest that the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is more sensitive to stroke-associated cognitive dysfunction than the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), but little is known about how these screening measures relate to neurocognitive test performance or real-world functioning in patients with good recovery after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). The aim of the present study was to determine how MoCA and MMSE scores relate to neurocognitive impairment and return to work after aSAH.
Methods: Thirty-two patients with aSAH who had made a good recovery completed the MoCA, the MMSE, and a battery of neurocognitive tests.
The development of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has dramatically improved survival for those living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but whether ART improves cognitive functioning remains unclear. The aim of the present review was to examine systematically the extent to which ART improves cognition among individuals with HIV using meta-analytic methods. Twenty-three studies were included in the quantitative review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is a medical emergency characterized by the accumulation of blood in the subarachnoid space surrounding the brain. The acute treatment of aSAH is well documented but less is known about the long-term effects of aSAH on cognition and day-to-day functioning.
Methods: We reviewed all studies in the past 10 years that have focused on the effects of aSAH on cognition and day-to-day functioning.