Search results for " Brain"
showing 10 items of 985 documents
Intracerebral Abscess Caused by Actinomyces israelii
2020
We describe a case of 49-years old female with a medical history of penicillin allergy, who suffered from brain infection caused by Actinomyces israelii. Therefore, the available therapy was metronidazole, ceftriaxone, and chloramphenicol. Due to a deterioration of the general and neurological condition of the patient, it was decided to perform a scratch skin test on penicillin, which was negative. After that, penicillin was administrated parenterally. The patient showed no hypersensitive reaction. Improvement was achieved. The patient underwent three subsequent surgeries due to primary and recurrent brain abscesses. There was a distinct improvement in her clinical status. Two months after …
The use of normothermic machine perfusion to rescue liver allografts from expanded criteria donors
2021
The use of expanded criteria donors is one of the strategies used to overcome the gap between the demand for organs and the number of donors. Physicians debate the extent to which marginal grafts can be used. In recent years, normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) has been used to test liver viability before transplantation. Grafts underwent NMP whenever histological steatosis was > 40% or there were at least three Eurotransplant criteria for expanded criteria donor (ECD). We used NMP to test 19 grafts, 3 from donation after type 3 controlled cardiac death (DCD), and 16 from donation after brain death (DBD). Only two grafts from DBD were not transplanted, because perfusion proved they were…
Low Serum Choline Concentrations Are Associated with Worse Cognitive Performance in Subjects with Metabolic Syndrome
2020
OBJECTIVES: Choline is an essential nutrient critical for components of the cell membrane, such as choline-containing phospholipids (phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin), and in synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Choline has been shown to exert neuroprotective effects, but the association between serum choline and cognitive performance has been scarcely investigated. Our aims are: 1) To study the association between serum total choline, phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin with cognitive performance in subjects with metabolic syndrome; and 2) to analyze genetic variants and dietary intake most associated with cholines in this population. METHODS: We analyzed 426 subjects (a…
Restoring Neurological Physiology: The Innovative Role of High-Energy MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound (HIMRgFUS). Preliminary Data from a New Method of …
2017
Background Tremor is a disabling condition, common to several neurodegenerative diseases. Lesioning procedures and deep brain stimulation, respectively, of the ventralis intermedius nucleus for intentional tremor, and of the subthalamic nucleus for parkinsonian resting tremor, have been introduced in clinical practice for patients refractory to medical treatment. The combination of high-energy focused ultra-sound (HIFUS) with sophisticated magnetic resonance (MR) instrumentation, together with accurate knowledge of the stereotactic brain coordinates, represents a revolution in neuromodulation. Methods At the Neurosurgical Clinic and the Radiology Department of the University of Palermo,, tw…
Aquaporin-4 distribution in control and stressed astrocytes in culture and in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with traumatic brain injuries
2012
Distribution of aquaporin-4 (AQP4) was studied by western analysis and immunofluorescence in rat astrocytes exposed to either hypothermic (30 °C) or hyperosmolar (0.45 M sucrose) stress, and in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients who suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI). CSF was obtained from 5 healthy subjects and from 20 patients suffering from severe TBI. CSF samples were taken at admission and on days 3 and 5-7. Here we report that, in response to both hypothermia and hyperosmolar stress, AQP4 was markedly reduced in cultured astrocytes. We also found that AQP4 significantly increased in patients with severe brain injury in respect to healthy subjects (P < 0.002). AQP4 in CSF rem…
Reduced Risk of Reoperations With Modern Deep Brain Stimulator Systems: Big Data Analysis From a United States Claims Database
2021
Objective: There have been significant improvements in the design and manufacturing of deep brain stimulation (DBS) systems, but no study has considered the impact of modern systems on complications. We sought to compare the relative occurrence of reoperations after de novo implantation of modern and traditional DBS systems in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) or essential tremor (ET) in the United States.Design: Retrospective, contemporaneous cohort study.Setting: Multicenter data from the United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrative claims database between 2016 and 2018.Participants: This population-based sample consisted of 5,998 patients implanted with a …
Developmental dyslexia: atypical cortical asymmetries and functional significance
2000
Using brain magnetic resonance imaging, we measured in 16 young developmental dyslexic adults and 14 age-matched controls cortical asymmetries of posterior language-related areas, including Planum temporale and parietal operculum cortical ribbon, and of the inferior frontal region related in the left hemisphere to speech processing. In addition, we assessed the sulcal morphology of the inferior frontal gyrus in both groups according to a qualitative method. The dyslexic subjects also performed specific tasks exploring different aspects of phonological and lexical-semantic processes. Results showed that: (1) contrary to most results reported in the literature, there is a lack of any morpholo…
Investigation of the Effect of Mode and Tempo on Emotional Responses to Music Using EEG Power Asymmetry
2013
The combined interactions of mode and tempo on emotional responses to music were investigated using both self-reports and electroencephalogram (EEG) activity. A musical excerpt was performed in three different modes and tempi. Participants rated the emotional content of the resulting nine stimuli and their EEG activity was recorded. Musical modes influence the valence of emotion with major mode being evaluated happier and more serene, than minor and locrian modes. In EEG frontal activity, major mode was associated with an increased alpha activation in the left hemisphere compared to minor and locrian modes, which, in turn, induced increased activation in the right hemisphere. The tempo mod…
D2-receptor imaging with [123I]IBZM and Single Photon Emission Tomography in psychiatry: a survey of current status
1995
D2-dopamine receptors can be visualized in the human brain in vivo by Single Photon Emission Tomography (SPECT) and the radiolabeled benzamide [123I]IBZM. The present paper reviews the current status of this type of functional brain imaging with respect to basic methodological aspects, data analysis and quantification. The results from published clinical studies in different psychiatric patient populations and normal controls with [123I]IBZM are reviewed. [123I]IBZM-SPECT is a powerful tool for the investigation of D2-dopamine receptor status in psychiatric disorders, different types of drug treatment as well as therapeutic and side effects of pharmacologic agents. However, there still is a…
Thyroid hormones induce sumoylation of the cold shock domain-containing protein PIPPin in developing rat brain and in cultured neurons.
2006
We previously identified a cold shock domain (CSD)-containing protein (PIPPin), expressed at high level in brain cells. PIPPin has the potential to undergo different post-translational modifications and might be a good candidate to regulate the synthesis of specific proteins in response to extracellular stimuli. Here we report the effects of thyroid hormone (T3) on PIPPin expression in developing rat brain. We found that a significant difference among euthyroid- and hypothyroid- newborn rats concerns sumoylation of nuclear PIPPin, that is abolished by hypothyroidism. Moreover, T3-dependence of PIPPin sumoylation has been confirmed in cortical neurons purified from brain cortices and culture…