Regional cerebral perfusion and amytal distribution during the Wada test.
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The distribution of sodium amytal and its effect on regional cerebral perfusion during the intracarotid amytal (Wada) test were investigated using high-resolution hexamethyl propyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) SPECT coregistered with the patient's MRI dataset. METHODS: Twenty patients underwent SPECT after intravenous HMPAO injection, and 5 patients had both intravenous and intracarotid injections in a double injection-acquisition protocol. RESULTS: All patients had hypoperfusion in the territories of the anterior and middle cerebral arteries. Basal ganglia perfusion was preserved in 20 of 25 patients. Hypoperfusion of the entire mesial temporal cortex was seen in 9 of 25 patients. Partial hypoperfusion of the whole mesial cortex or hypoperfusion of part of the mesial cortex was seen in 14 of 25 patients. In 2 of 25 patients, mesial temporal perfusion was unaffected. In 5 patients, the double acquisition showed a distribution of HMPAO delivery matching that of hypoperfusion, except for the following: (a) HMPAO was delivered to the basal ganglia and insula, where there was no hypoperfusion; (b) HMPAO was not delivered to the contralateral cerebellum, which did show hypoperfusion; and (c) in 1 patient, perfusion of the mesial temporal cortex was preserved despite intracarotid delivery of HMPAO. CONCLUSION: Some degree of hypoperfusion of medial temporal structures occurs in the great majority of patients during the Wada test. Partial inactivation of memory structures is therefore a credible mechanism of action of the test. The double acquisition protocol provided no evidence that mesial temporal structures are inactivated remotely by diaschisis. Perfusion in the basal ganglia and insular cortex is not affected by amytal. (+info)
Drug blockade of open end-plate channels.
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1. The actions of amylobarbitone, thiopentone, methohexitone and methyprylone at voltage-clamped frog end-plates were studied. 2. In the presence of barbiturates the conductance change evoked by an iontophoretic carbachol application was reduced by a prepulse of carbachol. The extra inhibition evoked by a prepulse disappeared exponentially with a time constant of 150-200 ms. 3. Barbiturates produce an increased rate of decay of nerve evoked endplate currents. Tne concentration and voltage dependence of the barbtiruate e.p.c. decay rates tally with the hypothesis that the increased rate of decay is due to block of active receptor-channel complexes by barbiturates with a rate constant of 10(6) M-1S-1. 4. Conductance changes produced by bath applied agonists were depressed by thiopentone, the effect becoming greater the higher the agonist concentration. This effect, and also the observation that the concentration of thiopentone required to depress the bath agonist response is much greater than the apparent dissociation constant for binding to active receptor-channel complexes calculated from kinetic measurements, suggest that the selectivity for binding to open receptor-channel complexes is very high. 5. Methyprylone, which is structurally similar to the barbiturates, is only a weak antagonist and shows no interpulse interaction. It was predicted that methyprylone should produce fast and slow components in the e.p.c. decay, and this prediction was verified. 6. In the presence of barbiturates large iontophoretic carbachol applications produce conductance changes which show fast and slow components. Under these conditions the effects of carbachol prepulses become complex. However the effects are qualitatively consistent with the notion that different components of the response are contributed by channels located at various distances from the iontophoretic pipette tip. 7. All the data agree with a model in which the channel has three stages: closed, open and blocked. Only open channels can block, and blocked channels can only open. (+info)
Functional MRI and the Wada test provide complementary information for predicting post-operative seizure control.
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Prediction of post-surgical seizure relief and potential cognitive deficits secondary to anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) are important to pre-surgical planning. Although the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT) is predictive of post-ATL seizure outcome, development of non-invasive and more precise means for determining post-ATL seizure relief are needed. We previously reported on a technique utilizing functional MRI (fMRI) to evaluate the relative functional adequacy of mesial temporal lobe structures in preparation for ATL. In the present study, we report follow-up outcome data on eight temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients 1-year post-ATL who were evaluated pre-surgically using IAT and fMRI. Functional memory lateralization using fMRI predicted post-ATL seizure outcome as effectively as the IAT. In general, asymmetry of functional mTL activation favouring the non-epileptic hemisphere was associated with seizure-free status at 1-year follow-up. Moreover, when combined, fMRI and IAT provided complementary data that resulted in improved prediction of post-operative seizure control compared with either procedure alone. (+info)
Comparison of localizing values of various diagnostic tests in non-lesional medial temporal lobe epilepsy.
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Though the surgical treatment for medial temporal lobe epilepsy yields a high success rate, more studies are needed in order to determine the most efficacious pre-operative algorithm. The authors studied the relationship between surgical outcome and the localization results of various pre-operative diagnostic tests to assess the predictive value. Seventy-one consecutive patients who had undergone anterior temporal lobectomy with amygdalohippocampectomy with the diagnosis of non-lesional medial temporal lobe epilepsy, who had been followed up more than 24 months, were analyzed retrospectively. Electroencephalogy (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), proton emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), the Wada test, and neuropsychological testing were analyzed. There was no diagnostic test that was found to have a statistically significant relationship between Engel Class I outcome and localization results (P & 0.05). SPECT, neuropsychological testing, and the Wada test all had less predictive values (P < 0.01). EEG and PET had comparable predictive values for Engel Class I with MRI (P & 0.05). No single diagnostic test alone is sufficient to make a diagnosis of non-lesional medial temporal lobe epilepsy. MRI, EEG and PET had comparable predictive values for Engel Class I. SPECT, neuropsychological testing, and the Wada test had less predictive values. (+info)
Lateralized memory deficits on the Wada test correlate with the side of lobectomy only for patients with unilateral medial temporal lobe epilepsy.
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The aim of this study was to determine whether the predictive value of the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT) for the side to be resected is applicable only to medial temporal lobe epilepsy and to investigate whether there are different patterns of memory performances on the IAT between patients with unilateral mesial temporal sclerosis (UMT group) and those without (non-UMT group). We studied 30 patients in the UMT group and 10 in the non-UMT group, who underwent pre-surgical evaluation for intractable temporal lobe epilepsy. Memory performances on the IAT was defined as the percentage of memory items presented during unilateral hemispheric anesthesia that was recognized after recovery. More than a 20% decline of the memory performance on the IAT compared with the memory performance on the pre-test was regarded as a memory deficit. Age at onset of epilepsy was significantly younger in the UMT than in the non-UMT group. Surgical outcome was significantly better in the UMT than in the non-UMT group. The lateralizing value of unilateral memory deficits on the IAT was statistically confirmed. There was a significant association between falsely lateralizing memory performances and the non-UMT group. Excluding the exceptional cases with right-sided language dominance in spite of right-sided lesions, the high incidence of the unilateral right-sided memory deficits in the non-UMT group was statistically significant. This study suggested that the excellent lateralizing value of the memory performances on the IAT is limited to patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. IAT memory performances in patients without such lesions can be misleading, even if lateralized, because their memory status presumably reflects a natural lateralization of the memory organization which is independent of the epileptogenic focus. (+info)
Absent vestibulo-ocular reflexes and acute supratentorial lesions.
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Loss of vestibulo-ocular reflexes occurred in two patients with acute supratentorial lesions who received therapeutic doses of anticonvulsant drugs. There was no clinical or angiographic evidence of focal brain-stem damage. Absence of vestibulo-ocular reflexes is attributed to a combination of acute cerebral damage and anticonvulsant drugs. The loss of these reflexes in patients with acute cerebral lesions cannot be interpreted as evidence of irreversible brain-stem injury. (+info)
Cardioprotective effect of chronic hyperglycemia: effect on hypoxia-induced apoptosis and necrosis.
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It is generally accepted that mild forms of diabetes render the heart resistant to an ischemic insult. Because myocytes incubated chronically in medium containing high concentrations of glucose (25 mM) develop into a diabetes-like phenotype, we tested the hypothesis that high-glucose treatment diminishes hypoxia-induced injury. In support of this hypothesis, we found that cardiomyocytes incubated for 3 days with medium containing 25 mM glucose showed less hypoxia-induced apoptosis and necrosis than cells exposed to medium containing 5 mM glucose (control). Indeed, whereas 27% of control cells became necrotic after 1 h of chemical hypoxia with 10 mM deoxyglucose and 5 mM amobarbital (Amytal), only 11% of the glucose-treated cells became necrotic. Similarly, glucose treatment reduced the extent of apoptosis from 32% to 12%. This beneficial effect of glucose treatment was associated with a 40% reduction in the Ca(2+) content of the hypoxic cell. Glucose treatment also mediated an upregulation of the cardioprotective factor Bcl-2 but did not affect the cellular content of the proapoptotic factors Bax and Bad. Nonetheless, the phosphorylation state of Bad was shifted in favor of its inactive, phosphorylated form after high-glucose treatment. These data suggest that glucose treatment renders the cardiomyocyte resistant to hypoxia-induced apoptosis and necrosis by preventing the accumulation of Ca(2+) during hypoxia, promoting the upregulation of Bcl-2, and enhancing the inactivation of Bad. (+info)
Transcortical sensory aphasia: revisited and revised.
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Transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA) is characterized by impaired auditory comprehension with intact repetition and fluent speech. We induced TSA transiently by electrical interference during routine cortical function mapping in six adult seizure patients. For each patient, TSA was associated with multiple posterior cortical sites, including the posterior superior and middle temporal gyri, in classical Wernicke's area. A number of TSA sites were immediately adjacent to sites where Wernicke's aphasia was elicited in the same patients. Phonological decoding of speech sounds was assessed by auditory syllable discrimination and found to be intact at all sites where TSA was induced. At a subset of electrode sites where the pattern of language deficits otherwise resembled TSA, naming and word reading remained intact. Language lateralization testing by intracarotid amobarbital injection showed no evidence of independent right hemisphere language. These results suggest that TSA may result from a one-way disruption between left hemisphere phonology and lexical-semantic processing. (+info)