Clinical and radiological features of main dementias

Dementia is a syndrome characterized by a decline of two or more cognitive functions, affecting social or professional life. Alzheimer’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that represents 53% of dementia cases; memory loss, inability to recognize faces, impaired judgement, disorientation and confusion are possible common symptoms. Vascular Dementia is responsible for 42% of dementia cases, due to cerebrovascular pathologies, and the clinical aspects are related to the extension and location of the brain injury. Lewy Bodies Dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder that represents 15% of dementia cases, and its symptoms include visual hallucinations, parkinsonism and fluctuating cognitive decline. Frontotemporal dementia is a group of clinical syndromes, divided in Behavioral-variant, characterized by disinhibition, compulsions, apathy, aberrant sexual behavior and executive dysfunction; and Primary Progressive Aphasia, which is subdivided in Nonfluentvariant and Semantic-variant. Vitamin B12 deficiency is a reversible cause of dementia, with a wide clinical feature, that includes psychiatric symptoms such as depression and irritability, hematological symptoms related to anemia (e.g. dyspnea and fatigue), and neurological symptoms including dementia and neuropathy. Normal pressure hydrocephalus is also reversible, presenting forgetfulness, changes in mood, decline of executive functions, reduced attention, and a lack of interest in daily activities as symptoms. The radiological findings vary depending on the etiology of dementia. For that reason, understanding neuroimaging and clinical aspects is important to diagnose effectivel

Aspectos anatômicos, fisiopatológicos e clínicos da Síndrome de Horner: um guia ilustrado

A Síndrome de Horner (SH) é classicamente caracterizada por uma tríade clínica: miose/anisocoria, ptose e anidrose facial. Sua fisiopatologia está relacionada à interrupção da via oculossímpatica, no entanto os mecanismos que levam a instalação da síndrome são diversos, e alguns até potencialmente fatais, evidenciando a importância de sua identificação precoce. Elucidamos ao longo desteartigo os principais aspectos anatômicos, etiopatogênicos e clínicos desta condição neurológic

Different etiologies of superficial siderosis

Superficial Siderosis (SS) is an uncommon condition caused by hemosiderin deposition into the subarachnoid space. SS is characterized by cerebellar ataxia, progressive sensorineural hearing loss and pyramidal signs, but is often an unrecognized disorder. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the diagnostic procedure of choice due its high sensitivity to hemosiderin deposits in addition to being a non-invasive exam. This paper aims to describe a case of SS and to perform a literature review about SS etiologies, neuroimaging features and clinical characteristics. A 65-year-old man came to a neurology outpatient clinic with seizures and cerebellar ataxia with a history of car accident and severe traumatic brain injury 45 years ago. MRI SWAN showed a hyposignal in the cisterns of the base and on the cerebellar surface and T1-weighted images left hippocampal sclerosis

Zeus’ pain: did he experience a thunderclap headache?

Zeus is known as the king of the gods and god of the sky. His attributes are lightning and thunder and he is often depicted about to hurl them. According to Greek mythology, Zeus molested the titan Metis and decided to swallow her when she was pregnant, which resulted in an excruciating headache, only relieved after a craniotomy performed using Hephaestus’ axe. The result of this procedure was the birth of Athena, Zeus’ daughter. We conducted a combined analysis of some writings such as the classical mythological poem Theogony by Hesiod, and some other books that examine and retell myths and legends of ancient Greece, with medical papers on this topic, trying to characterize Zeus’ headache. Would it be possible to fit Zeus’ headache into the group of thunderclap headaches

Anatomical, radiological and clinical features of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy: two illustrated cases reports

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy is the most commom form of focal epilepsy in adults. Its clinical features include focal seizure, dysmnestic symptoms – such as déjà vu or jamais vu – and autonomic or psychic aura. We reported two cases of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with similar clinical features, but with entirely different etiologies. Mesial temporal sclerosis contributes up to 70% of all mesial temporal lobe epilepsy cases and MRI usually shows reduced hippocampal volume and increased signal intensity on T2-weighted imaging. Incomplete hippocampal inversion has uncertain relation with epilepsy and is characterized by an atypical verticalized and medially positioned anatomical pattern of the hippocampus and also a deep collateral sulcus

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements