A 50-year-old woman presented with progressive visual disturbance, ataxia, and dementia. The cerebral cortex became atrophic, as the disease progressed, and electroencephalography showed periodic synchronous discharges. The patient's prion gene revealed a point mutation (232Met to Arg), and a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was made. Iomazenil single-photon emission computed tomography (...

Laminins are important components of the extracellular matrix, and participate in neuronal development, survival and regeneration. The tissue plasminogen activator/plasmin extracellular protease cascade and downstream laminin degradation are implicated in excitotoxin-induced neuronal degeneration. To determine which specific laminin chains are involved, we investigated the expression of laminin...

A selective subtotal cerebellar neuronal degeneration was found in a patient who died 4 1/2 months after suffering neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS), a rare, potentially fatal disorder associated with neuroleptic medications. It is suggested that the cerebellar neuronal degeneration in this case was due to hyperpyrexia, a cardinal clinical feature of NMS. Similar pathologic findings appear n...

Positron emission tomography (PET) is an effective tool for noninvasive examination of the body and provides a range of functional information. PET imaging with [(18)F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose ([(18)F]FDG) has been used to image alterations in glucose metabolism in brain or cancer tissue in the field of clinical diagnosis but not in the field of toxicology. A single dose of N-methyl-d-aspartate...

In the present study, we have attempted to elucidate the effects of the intra-arterial injection of microglia on the global ischemia-induced functional and morphological deficits of hippocampal CA1 neurons. When PKH26-labeled immortalized microglial cells, GMIR1, were injected into the subclavian artery, these exogenous microglia were found to accumulate in the hippocampus at 24 h after ischemi...

It is recognized that explosive blast Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) may be a significant risk factor for seizure and consequently Post-Traumatic Epilepsy (PTE). This has importance clinically as the manifestation of seizures following a blast exposure may be the only objective clinical sign that a victim may have suffered cellular and structural brain injury. The mechanisms by which explosive bl...

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by cognitive decline, neuronal degeneration, and the accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ). Although, the neurotoxic Aβ peptide is widely believed to trigger neuronal dysfunction and degeneration in Alzheimer's disease, the mechanism by which this occurs is poorly defined. Here we describe a novel, Aβ-triggered apoptotic pathway in which Aβ treatment leads to th...

In Parkinson's disease (PD), loss of striatal dopaminergic (DA) terminals and degeneration of DA neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) are associated with glial reactions. Such inflammatory processes are commonly considered an epiphenomenon of neuronal degeneration. However, there is increasing recognition of the role of neuroinflammation as an initiation factor of DA neuron degeneration. To inv...

The emergence of the adult Manduca sexta moth is followed by the programmed degeneration of about 50% of the insect's abdominal interneurons and motoneurons. Neurons in implanted ganglia undergo degeneration in concert with neurons of the host, thereby indicating that a hormonal cue is important. The neuronal death follows the normal decline in the levels of the steroid hormones, ecdysteroids, ...