Evaluation of cerebral hemodynamic status in patients with unilateral symptomatic carotid artery stenosis during motor tasks, through use of transcranial Doppler sonography.

BACKGROUND: Carotid artery stenosis increases cerebral ischemic event risk through changing different cerebral hemodynamic parameters. OBJECTIVE: To investigate how cerebral hemodynamics in the M1 segment of middle cerebral artery change in patients with carotid artery stenosis, after motor tasks using transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD). METHODS: Thirty-two healthy subjects and 30 patients with unilateral symptomatic carotid artery stenosis were recruited. The patient population was divided into three groups according to the degree of stenosis (group 1: ≥50 to 69%, group 2: 70 to 89% and group 3: ≥90 to 99%). TCD was used to measure the pulsatility index (PI) and cerebral vasomotor reactivity (CVR). RESULTS: In the patient group, significant differences for symptomatic side PI values (p=0.01) and mean CVR increases (p=0.05) were observed, compared with the healthy controls. However, the difference was not statistically significant for asymptomatic side PI values and mean CVR increases. The results from the intergroup comparison showed significantly higher percentages of symptomatic and asymptomatic side CVR increases in group 1, compared with groups 2 and 3 (p=0.001 and p=0.002, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that cerebral autoregulation and hemodynamic mechanisms are impaired in patients with carotid artery stenosis. Furthermore, the impairment of PI and CVR tends to get worse with increasing degrees of stenosis. In addition, this study demonstrated that assessment of these two hemodynamic parameters in clinical practice might be helpful for monitoring the progress of carotid artery stenosis.

Relationship of diffusion tensor imaging parameters with neurocognitive dysfunction in patients with Behcet's disease.

Behcet's disease (BD) is a chronic, multisystemic, relapsing-remitting, progressive inflammatory disorder with unknown etiology. The aim of the study is to investigate the white matter integrity and subclinical brain parenchymal involvement in Behcet's subjects by utilizing diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and to correlate apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and radial diffusivity (RD) values measured from the diverse distinct anatomic locations with the disease duration time and neurocognitive function test results. Thirty-five adults with Behcet's disease and 21 age-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Neurocognitive functions of the patients were evaluated with the Brief Repetable Battery-Neuropsychological tests (BRB-N). In both groups, DTI metrics were calculated from 19 different locations in the brain. The association between the DTI parameters and disease duration time and neurocognitive function test results were investigated. In Behcet's disease, at the cingulum and the splenium of the corpus callosum (SCC), FA values were significantly lower compared with the controls (p = 0.0015, p = 0.003, respectively). The ADC values of the corona radiata and RD values of superior longitudinal fasciculus and SCC were significantly higher than the controls (p = 0.023, p = 0.028, p = 0.006, respectively). Significant negative correlations were found between the FA values of cingulum, genu of corpus callosum (GCC), posterior limb of internal capsule (PLIC) and disease duration time (r = - 0.368; p = 0.029 and r = - 0.337; p = 0.048 and r = - 0.527; p = 0.001 respectively). All BD subjects performed significantly lower test scores on the spatial recall test (SPART) (p = 0.001). In addition, negative correlation was found between the MD values of the parietooccipital white matter and the selective reminding test (SRT) results (r = - 0.353; p = 0.037). Our DTI study presented microstructural alterations in the neurocognitive-related areas and BRB-N test results even in patients without neurological symptoms which may imply insidious neurological involvement.

The overlooked side of convulsion: bilateral posterior fracture and dislocation of proximal humerus.

Injuries after an epileptic convulsion have been seen commonly such as burns, head injury and dislocation of the extremities. But fractures of the extremities due to convulsion are rare. External trauma mechanism is not necessary for extremity fractures. Muscle contractions can cause increased load on the skeleton and it can be complicated by dislocation andor fracture of extremities. Almost 1-4% of all the shoulder dislocations are posterior. In this case report we present a 32 year old male patient who had bilateral posterior fracture and dislocation of proximal humerus after convulsion. We would like to emphasize that it is so important to make systemic examination and evaluation of the patients who were admitted to emergency department after epileptic convulsion.

Reversible conduction failure in overlap of Miller Fisher syndrome and pharyngeal-cervical-brachial variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome in the spectrum of nodo-paranodopathies.

Patients with an overlap of the pharyngeal-cervical-brachial variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome and Miller Fisher syndrome (PCB/MFS) have rarely been reported. The electrophysiological findings in PCB/MFS are of great interest and may provide insight into the pathophysiology of the disorder. We report the clinical features and nerve conduction study findings in a patient with PCB/MFS with high titers of antiganglioside antibodies against GQ1b, GD1a, and GD1b. In serial nerve conduction studies, compound muscle action potential amplitudes normalised without development of temporal dispersion within 3 weeks, and absent median, ulnar, and sural sensory nerve action potentials became recordable within 4 months. These findings are consistent with reversible conduction failure in both motor and sensory fibres, and PCB/MFS could be classified in the recently described nodo-paranodopathy spectrum of acute neuropathies associated with anti-ganglioside antibodies.

Assessment of platelet indices in patients with neurodegenerative diseases: mean platelet volume was increased in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Platelets induce chronic inflammation which is a key step in atherosclerosis and may be involved in the progression of neurodegenerative diseases (NDD). We aimed to measure the mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet count (PLC) in NDD patients. The present study was designed to investigate the platelet function by measuring MPV and PLC in NDD. A total of 182 outpatients with Alzheimer's (AD) or Parkinson's diseases (PD) were included. The control group consisted of 104 healthy subjects. Platelet count was similar between groups. MPV values of PD patients were higher than those of AD patients and controls (P < 0.001). MPV correlated negatively with Heohn and Yahr scale (HYS) score (P < 0.001). Increased MPV in patients with PD may point to a platelet dysfunction. High-grade inflammation presents with low levels of MPV as seen in PD patients with high HYS scores.