Persistent topology for natural data analysis - A survey

Natural data offer a hard challenge to data analysis. One set of tools is being developed by several teams to face this difficult task: Persistent topology. After a brief introduction to this theory, some applications to the analysis and classification of cells, lesions, music pieces, gait, oil and gas reservoirs, cyclones, galaxies, bones, brain connections, languages, handwritten and gestured letters are shown

Brain and lung metastasis of Bartholin’s gland adenoid cystic carcinoma: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Adenoid cystic carcinoma of Bartholin’s gland is a very rare disease. CASE PRESENTATION: A 48-year-old premenopausal woman of Caucasian origin was delivered adjuvant pelvic and inguinal radiotherapy after prior complete left Bartholin’s gland tumor excision and inguinal lymph node dissection for adenoid cystic carcinoma of Bartholin’s gland with one metastatic inguinal lymph node. Two years after primary treatment, she presented to the Emergency Room with acute headache, hypoacousia, decrease in visual acuity, and a decrease in right leg muscle strength. A cranial magnetic resonance imaging scan demonstrated three cystic brain lesions with associated perifocal edema. Chest and abdomen computed tomography scans and a magnetic resonance imaging scan of the pelvis did not find any metastatic or residual disease elsewhere. A physical examination found no local recurrence. Stereotactic brain biopsies with pathology examination revealed the presence of adenoid cystic carcinoma metastasis. She thus received 30Gy of brain radiotherapy but, three months later, the brain lesions did not decrease in size and left mid lobular lung lesions appeared on her chest computed tomography scan. A mid left lobe lung excision was undertaken followed by chemotherapy consisting of six cycles of cyclophosphamide, adriamycin and cisplatin. Five months after beginning chemotherapy, the brain disease progressed and our patient died. CONCLUSION: Our case report shows the difficulty in managing brain and lung metastasis of Bartholin’s gland adenoid cystic carcinoma as no consensus on the optimal treatment exists

Establishing, versus Maintaining, Brain Function: A Neuro-computational Model of Cortical Reorganization after Injury to the Immature Brain

The effect of age at injury on outcome after acquired brain injury (ABI) has been the subject of much debate. Many argue that young brains are relatively tolerant of injury. A contrasting viewpoint due to Hebb argues that greater system integrity may be required for the initial establishment of a function than for preservation of an already-established function. A neuro-computational model of cortical map formation was adapted to examine effects of focal and distributed injury at various stages of development. This neural network model requires a period of training during which it self-organizes to establish cortical maps. Injuries were simulated by lesioning the model at various stages of this process and network function was monitored as "development" progressed to completion. Lesion effects are greater for larger, earlier, and distributed (multifocal) lesions. The mature system is relatively robust, particularly to focal injury. Activities in recovering systems injured at an early stage show changes that emerge after an asymptomatic interval. Early injuries cause qualitative changes in system behavior that emerge after a delay during which the effects of the injury are latent. Functions that are incompletely established at the time of injury may be vulnerable particularly to multifocal injury

Deep Neural Network with l2-norm Unit for Brain Lesions Detection

Automated brain lesions detection is an important and very challenging clinical diagnostic task because the lesions have different sizes, shapes, contrasts, and locations. Deep Learning recently has shown promising progress in many application fields, which motivates us to apply this technology for such important problem. In this paper, we propose a novel and end-to-end trainable approach for brain lesions classification and detection by using deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). In order to investigate the applicability, we applied our approach on several brain diseases including high and low-grade glioma tumor, ischemic stroke, Alzheimer diseases, by which the brain Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) have been applied as an input for the analysis. We proposed a new operating unit which receives features from several projections of a subset units of the bottom layer and computes a normalized l2-norm for next layer. We evaluated the proposed approach on two different CNN architectures and number of popular benchmark datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the superior ability of the proposed approach.Comment: Accepted for presentation in ICONIP-201

General Seizures Due to Brain Abscess Causa Suspected Intracranial Tuberculosis at Prof Aloei Saboe Hospital Gorontalo

Introduction: Seizures are a severe clinical condition with complications of brain abscess. This report will describe the rare occurrence of generalized seizures due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) brain abscess.Case: Male, 57 years old, admitted to the emergency department with two episodes of generalized seizures one hour before admission. The patient had a history of pulmonary tuberculosis during four months of treatment and was treated with an anti-tuberculosis fixed drug combination (FDC) 3. The patient was in a state of delirium and had lower extremity weakness. The chest radiograph shows a multifocal patchy opacity in the right upper lobe with thickening in the right pericardium. Pre-Contrast MSCT-Scan of the brain showed multiple hypodense lesions in the left frontal lobe, right frontoparietal, left basal ganglia, and pons. Post-contrast shows multiple low-attenuation, oval-shaped lesions with peripheral enhancement (double rim sign) with vasogenic edema. Finally, the patient was diagnosed with a tuberculous brain abscess.Discussion: CNS tuberculosis is a rare cause of seizures and is often followed by a history of pulmonary tuberculosis. Tuberculosis appears on the Contrast MSCT Scan Brain as an avascular mass lesion of low density and sometimes more significant than expected around cerebral edema. End-stage tuberculosis is well encapsulated and has peripheral ring enhancement with vasogenic edema.Conclusion: Pre-Post Contrast Brain MSCT is the diagnostic imaging of choice for suspected tuberculous brain abscess

The role of reactive astrocitose in the chronological evolution of traumatic brain injury

Introduction and objectives. This study aims to investigate whether the cerebral modifications of posttraumatic reactive astrocitose can be considered an objective criterion for determining the age of traumatic cranio-cerebral lesions. Materials and methods. The present study consists of a series of 23 medico-legal cases that underwent autopsy inTeleormanCounty(Romania) Department of Forensic Medicine during 2007–2016, with full immune-histochemical microscopic examination using GFAP staining. The study consists of two groups, a series of 13 cases with cranio-cerebral trauma with different posttraumatic survival periods and 9 cases as a control group. Results and discussions. We discovered GFAP+ reactive astrocytes even when death occurred immediately after the trauma event and up to 4 months after the traumatic incident. We also discovered an intense positive correlation between the density of the GFAP+ cell from the perilesional area and the posttraumatic survival period. The highest cerebral density of the GFAP+ astrocytes occurred with acute death prior (1 to 24 hours) and the lowest in the chronic period (over 2 weeks). Conclusions. The gradual and differentiated appearance of the reactive astrocytes in close relation with the cerebral posttraumatic interval, with specific lesional and perilesional distribution as well as in surrounding area, clearly demonstrates that the state of the reactive astrocitose may constitute an objective index for evaluation of the elapsed time after the posttraumatic event

Soft Null Hypotheses: A Case Study of Image Enhancement Detection in Brain Lesions

This work is motivated by a study of a population of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) to identify active brain lesions. At each visit, a contrast agent is administered intravenously to a subject and a series of images is acquired to reveal the location and activity of MS lesions within the brain. Our goal is to identify and quantify lesion enhancement location at the subject level and lesion enhancement patterns at the population level. With this example, we aim to address the difficult problem of transforming a qualitative scientific null hypothesis, such as "this voxel does not enhance", to a well-defined and numerically testable null hypothesis based on existing data. We call the procedure "soft null hypothesis" testing as opposed to the standard "hard null hypothesis" testing. This problem is fundamentally different from: 1) testing when a quantitative null hypothesis is given; 2) clustering using a mixture distribution; or 3) identifying a reasonable threshold with a parametric null assumption. We analyze a total of 20 subjects scanned at 63 visits (~30Gb), the largest population of such clinical brain images

Familial multiple cavernous malformation syndrome : MR features in this uncommon but silent threat

Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM) are vascular malformations in the brain and spinal cord. The familial form of cerebral cavernous malformation (FCCM) is uncommon. This autosomal dominant pathology mostly presents with seizures and focal neurological symptoms. Many persons affected by FCCM remain asymptomatic. However, acute hemorrhages may appear over time. MRI demonstrates multiple focal regions of susceptibility induced signal loss, well seen on gradient-echo sequences (GRE) or even better on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). The presence of a single CCM – especially in young persons – without history of FCCM does not exclude this diagnosis. Some clinicians also advise an MRI of the spinal cord at the time of diagnosis to serve as a baseline and a control MRI of the brain every one to two years. MRI is certainly indicated in individuals with obvious new neurologic symptoms. Symptomatic siblings should also undergo an MRI of the brain to determine presence, size, and location of the lesions. Even in asymptomatic siblings, a screening MRI may be considered, as there may be an increased risk of hemorrhage, spontaneous or due to the use of certain medications; the knowledge of the presence and the type of these lesions are important. Surgical removal of a CCM may be justified to prevent a life-threatening hemorrhage. Control MRI may reveal the postoperative outcome

Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: advances in disease-modifying therapies

Multiple sclerosis is a demyelinating disease affecting the central nervous system. It is the most prevalent disabling neurological condition among young adults, with onset typically between 20 and 40 years of age. Infiltrating immune cells and microglia activations are associated with inflammatory and neurodegenerative mechanisms. Current available disease modifying therapies suppress or modulate the immune system. These pharmaceuticals differ with respect to administration route and frequency, adverse effects, and efficacy. This paper provides a thorough manuscript illustrating the major prescribing factors, efficacy profiles, adverse events, and contraindications that patients and clinicians should consider while choosing a treatment. Despite the advancements made over the past 20 years, patients with progressive multiple sclerosis have few therapeutic options. Additionally, this paper assesses emerging therapies and disease targets on the pharmaceutical horizon, which have shown promise for all disease phenotypes