Slit Ventricle as a Neurosurgical Emergency: Case Report and Review of Literature.

Background: Symptomatic slit ventricle is one of the most challenging complications of shunt surgery in children. Clinical signs and symptoms may appear with a wide range of intracranial pressure (ICP) values. We report the case of a 10-year-old girl, who did not present the classic clinical features of extremely elevated ICP, which was proven by multiple invasive ICP recordings, performed during shunt revisions.

Immunohistochemistry of cerebellar seizures: mossy fiber afferents play an important role in seizure spread and initiation in the rat.

Clinical reports suggest the participation of the cerebellum in epilepsy. Mossy fibers are the main excitatory afferents of the cerebellar cortex; most of them use glutamate and strongly excite granule cells through NMDA and AMPA receptors. The role of the ponto-cerebellar mossy fibers in cerebellar neuronal hyperactivity was investigated in the present study in experimental adult Wistar rats.

Target identification for stereotactic thalamotomy using diffusion tractography.

Background: Stereotactic targets for thalamotomy are usually derived from population-based coordinates. Individual anatomy is used only to scale the coordinates based on the location of some internal guide points. While on conventional MR imaging the thalamic nuclei are indistinguishable, recently it has become possible to identify individual thalamic nuclei using different connectivity profiles, as defined by MR diffusion tractography.

Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma of the spine: report of two cases and review of the literature.

We report two patients with spinal epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EH), an uncommon vascular, potentially malignant tumour. Neurological signs, diagnostic images, surgical techniques and complications, histology and the role of adjuvant therapy are discussed. Primary manifestation of EH of the vertebral column is rare.