ABSTRACT
Over a period of 4.5 years, 14 patients with frontoethmoidal meningoencephaloceles were treated. Most patients came from Northern Namibia. Precise delineation of all cranial abnormalities was obtained by modern imaging techniques, and specific patterns of cerebral abnormality were found. The malformation was corrected in a single stage, and significant modifications have been developed to render the procedure simpler and safer. Information from our series favors delayed neural tube closure as the primary pathogenesis of the defect and suggests a common teratogen as the most probable etiological agent. Our experience leads us to advocate early correction of even small defects.
Subject(s)
Encephalocele/surgery , Meningocele/surgery , Ethmoid Bone/surgery , Female , Frontal Bone/surgery , Frontal Lobe/abnormalities , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Male , NamibiaABSTRACT
Congenital pseudarthrosis is uncommon. We report on a series of 4 patients treated by means of free vascularised fibular grafts. Complications encountered were graft fracture, delayed union and angulation deformities. Modifications in the surgical technique improved later results. We recommend wide excision of pathological bone, bridging of the defect by free vascularised fibular grafts and rigid fixation.
Subject(s)
Fibula/transplantation , Pseudarthrosis/congenital , Tibia/surgery , Bone Transplantation/methods , Child, Preschool , Female , Fibula/blood supply , Humans , Infant , Male , Pseudarthrosis/surgerySubject(s)
Skin Abnormalities , Skin Transplantation , Bone Development , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Male , Scalp/surgery , Skull/physiopathologyABSTRACT
Vernier acuity, three-line interval bisection and line-width discrimination experiments were performed for a target bar stimulus with an asymmetrical orthoaxial contrast profile. This was done in an attempt to identify the nature of the spatial primitives that are involved in the visual coding of spatial location. We conclude that both the zero-crossings and the centroid or extremum of the zero-bounded region of the neural activity distribution that is elicited by the presentation of the target bar, are in principle available to perception. It probably depends on the spatial characteristics of the applied stimulus pattern and the adopted strategy which features are actually used in different localization tasks.