EUROPEAN NEUROLOGICAL REVIEW – VOLUME 7 ISSUE 3 – AUTUMN 2012

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) is a rare, autosomal recessive, neurodegenerative disorder occurring in all ethnic groups, with an estimated minimal incidence of 0.82 per 100,000 live births.1 This figure is likely to be an underestimation due to failure to recognise the clinical characteristics and initiate appropriate tests. NPC is a devastating disorder, characterised by […]

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a clinical syndrome consisting of a variable combination of the four cardinal features of resting tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability.1 Akinesia, defined as inability to initiate movement (e.g. gait ignition failure) or sustain movement (e.g. sudden freezes), is considered by some to be the fifth cardinal feature of PD.2 Most […]

Diabetes and ischaemic stroke are common conditions that often co-occur. The relationship between diabetes and stroke is bidirectional. On the one hand, people with diabetes have a more than two-fold increased risk of ischaemic stroke compared to people without diabetes.1 On the other hand, acute stroke can give rise to abnormalities in glucose metabolism, which […]

Abstract A heavy burden of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) is a risk factor for stroke and vascular cognitive impairment making it important to understand their pathophysiology, aetiology and clinical implications. Ageing studies suggest a linear relationship between blood pressure (BP) and both WMH and microstructural integrity in normal-appearing white matter and, after age, hypertension is […]

Most pituitary tumours are non-invasive, benign adenomas that remain confined to the sella turcica. Although there is, at present, no accepted definition of aggressive pituitary adenomas, one would suggest that these have a tendency to recur after initial surgery. They have a rapid growth rate and invade surrounding structures such as the sphenoid and cavernous […]

Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Multiple Sclerosis Since its introduction to medical practice in the 1980s, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become an indispensable imaging technique. It exploits differences in relaxation times (T1 and T2) between nuclei that have an odd number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) – usually hydrogen protons from water molecules present in […]

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is not only an inflammatory demyelinating disease as classically described but also a neurodegenerative disease with significant axonal loss, affecting all regions of the central nervous system (CNS). MS patients show significant axonal loss and to less extent neuronal loss in the grey matter, as well as multi-focal demyelination, oligodendrocyte loss and […]

What is Trigeminal Neuralgia? Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a vexing clinical problem for a number of reasons, not least of which is clearly defining its clinical spectrum. A commonly accepted definition of TN is that of a facial pain syndrome in which a patient experiences brief, episodic and sharp attacks of pain in the distribution […]