Cerebellum enlargement and corpus callosum agenesis: a longitudinal case report.

Macrocerebellum, a neuroradiological and clinical entity of unknown etiology characterized by an isolated, disproportionately large cerebellum, has to date been reported in only a few cases. It has been suggested that the condition could represent a marker for disturbed cerebral development, however, longitudinal reports are lacking. We describe a 19-month-old patient with agenesis of the corpus callosum, who developed enlargement of the cerebellum without clinical signs of cerebellar impairment, a picture that has not been previously described.

Schilder's disease: non-invasive diagnosis? :A case report and review.

Schilder's disease, or myelinoclastic diffuse sclerosis, is a rare disorder characterised by an inflammatory white matter plaque of demyelination. Clinical signs and symptoms might be atypical for early multiple sclerosis and at imaging the lesion is easily taken for a brain tumour. Regardless of the use of Poser's criteria for clinical diagnosis of Schilder's disease proposed in 1986, diagnostic difficulties are still present, as evidenced by the many reported cases in the English literature revised (Pubmed indexed, period 1998-2008).

Combining near infrared spectroscopy and functional MRI during continuous performance test in healthy subjects.

The study of cognitive functions is a major challenge of the modern functional imaging. Activation of specific cerebral area is obtained from the observation of physic characteristic affected by changes occurring in the blood flow resulting from an increased metabolic consumption. In this work two imaging techniques are used, the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and the near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), in order to assess cerebral performance during the execution of a well known sustained attention task, the Conners' continuous performance test (CPT).

Monitoring brain tissue oxygen tension in brain-injured patients reveals hypoxic episodes in normal-appearing and in peri-focal tissue.

Objective: We compared brain tissue oxygen tension (PtiO2) measured in peri-focal and in normal-appearing brain parenchyma on computerized tomography (CT) in patients following traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Design: Prospective observational study.

Setting: Neurointensive care unit.

Intraoperative subcortical language tract mapping guides surgical removal of gliomas involving speech areas.

Objective: Subcortical stimulation can be used to identify functional language tracts during resection of gliomas located close to or within language areas or pathways. The objective of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of the routine use of subcortical stimulation for identification of language tracts in a large series of patients with gliomas and to determine the influence that subcortical language tract identification exerted on the extent of surgery and on the appearance of immediate and definitive postoperative deficits.

Methods: Subcortical stimulation for language tract identification was systematically used during surgical removal of 88 gliomas (44 high-grade and 44 low-grade gliomas) involving language pathways.