OBJECTIVES Patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (IRBD) are at risk for developing Parkinson disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We aimed to identify functional brain imaging patterns predicting the emergence of PD and DLB in patients with IRBD, using SPECT with (99m)Tc-ethylene cysteinate dimer (ECD). METHODS Twenty patients with IRBD were scanned at baseline dur...

BACKGROUND Despite its high prevalence, relatively little is known about the pathophysiology of somnambulism. Increasing evidence indicates that somnambulism is associated with functional abnormalities during wakefulness and that sleep deprivation constitutes an important drive that facilitates sleepwalking in predisposed patients. Here, we studied the neural mechanisms associated with somnambu...

Tc-99m ethyl cysteinate diethylester (ECD) and Tc-99m hexamethyl propylene amine oxime (HMPAO) are commonly used for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies of a variety of neurologic disorders. Although these tracers have been very helpful in diagnosing and guiding treatment of neurologic disease, data describing the distribution and laterality of these tracers in normal res...

Perfusion study should be preoperatively required for the trapping of an internal carotid artery (ICA) in the traumatic pseudoaneurysm in the petrous ICA. A 23-year-old man was admitted with a semicomatose consciousness after a passenger traffic accident. A fracture on the right petrous apex and a pseudoaneurysm in the right petrous ICA was found in the brain computed tomography (CT) angiogram....

We describe a 51-year-old woman with a cerebral infarction that showed transient accumulation of thallium-201. On admission, this lesion was well-enhanced by gadolinium injection and gradually expanded, mimicking a malignant brain tumor. A cerebral angiogram, however, did not indicate the presence of a malignant brain tumor. Ethyl cysteinate dimer single photon computerized tomography showed pe...

Brain single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT), in particular, with perfusion agents or with neuroreceptor imaging radiopharmaceuticals, is rapidly becoming a clinical tool in many neurologic and psychiatric conditions. This imaging modality has been used for diagnosis, prognosis assessment, evaluation of response to therapy, risk stratification, detection of benign vs. malignant ...

UNLABELLED Ictal brain SPECT (IS) findings in neocortical epilepsy (patients without mesiotemporal sclerosis) can be subtle. This study is aimed at assessing how the seizure focus identification was improved by the inclusion of individual IS and interictal brain SPECT (ITS)-MRI image registration as well as performing IS - ITS image subtraction. METHODS The study involved the posthoc analysis...

A 54-year-old woman presented to our hospital with progressive motor weakness of the right arm. She had a medical history of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and hypothyroidism. Magnetic resonance imaging indicated a watershed infarction of the left hemisphere. Cervical echogram indicated severe stenosis of the internal carotid artery (ICA) without wall thickening. Cerebral angiography indica...

INTRODUCTION The aim of the present study was to determine the brain areas associated with fibromyalgia, and whether pretreatment regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) can predict response to gabapentin treatment. METHODS A total of 29 women with fibromyalgia and 10 healthy women (without pain) matched for age were finally enrolled in the study. Technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer single phot...