Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0264733 (ventricular dilatation)
 2,163 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Infantile hydrocephalus is most often caused by an obstruction in the cerebrospinal fluid flow pathway and results in ventricular dilatation and chronic trauma to the surrounding brain. Surgical treatment alleviates the condition but does not cure or prevent neurological deficits. The H-Tx rat has severe hydrocephalus due to a spontaneous aqueduct obstruction in late gestation. In order to determine how hydrocephalus affects brain metabolism in tissue adjacent to the expanded ventricles, cortical extracts have been made from groups of hydrocephalic and control littermates with early, intermediate, and advanced hydrocephalus at 4, 11, and 21 days after birth. Extracts were analyzed with 1H and 31P NMR spectroscopy and metabolite peaks were quantified using an external standard. Metabolite concentrations were calculated relative to tissue wet weight and subsequently expressed relative to tissue dry weight, using values for water content obtained from additional groups of rats. In early hydrocephalus there was a significant decrease in the phosphomonoester phosphorylcholine, and there were small, nonsignificant changes in other compounds. By 11 days, in addition to phosphomonoesters, there were significant decreases in ATP, phosphocreatine, and in inorganic phosphate, but with no change in lactate. By 21 days there were also substantial decreases in cholines, inositol, creatine, glutamate, glutamine, aspartate, N-acetylaspartate, alanine, and taurine. It is concluded that the sequence of pathological events starts with changes in membrane lipids. This is followed by reductions in energy metabolite which leads to cell swelling with loss of intracellular osmolytes and neurotransmitters. These changes are discussed in relation to hydrocephalus pathophysiology and to prevention and reversibility with shunt treatment.
 ...
PMID:Progressive changes in cortical metabolites at three stages of infantile hydrocephalus studied by in vitro NMR spectroscopy. 933 22

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of a 12-year-old female patient with glutaric aciduria type II was compared with data obtained from four healthy age- and sex-matched volunteers. In the clinically active phase, conventional magnetic resonance imaging showed mild ventricular dilatation. Frontal lobe choline/creatine (Cho/Cr) ratio (1.98) was higher than the ratios reported for the comparison participants (1.64 [SD 0.21]). The N-acetylaspartate/creatine (NAA/Cr) ratio (1.95) was lower than normal limits (2.66 [SD 0.23]). After successful riboflavin treatment and dietary restriction for proteins, the NAA/Cr ratio was within the normal range (2.44) and Cho/Cr ratio was below the normal range (1.15), suggesting riboflavin-responsive multiple acyl-coA dehydrogenase deficiency. An elevated Cho/Cr ratio and decreased NAA/Cr ratio is consistent with a demyelinating process in the active phase of glutaric aciduria type II. MRS helps to monitor the progress of the disease and the efficacy of treatment by revealing changes in NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr ratios.
 ...
PMID:Magnetic resonance spectroscopic characteristics of glutaric aciduria type II. 1697 66

In this article, we reviewed brain damage seen in patients with alcohol dependence briefly focusing on neuroimaging studies. In uncomplicated alcoholic patients, a high incidence of cortical shrinkage and ventricular dilatation were reported using brain CT scans. In older alcoholics, prefrontal gray matter deficits were especially marked when compared with younger alcoholics. Reversibility of brain shrinkage is a common neuroimaging finding in patients with alcohol dependence and a study by Gazdinski et al. reported more rapid brain tissue gain during the first month of sobriety than in the following months. Another MRI study using deformation-based morphometry revealed significant shrinkage in the frontal and temporal lobes within 1 week of abstinence of alcoholic patients. This study followed participants for 8 months longitudinally and revealed that abstaining alcoholics recovered tissue volumes significantly faster than nonalcoholic controls in the parietal and frontal lobes and this study also revealed that when abstaining alcoholics were compared with relapsed alcoholics, additional regions with significantly greater recovery in abstainers were the temporal lobes, thalamus, brainstem, cerebellum, corpus callosum, anterior cingulate, insula, and subcortical white matter. Finally we introduced a MR spectroscopy (MRS) study on alcoholic patients. This study using proton MRS indicated that with short-term abstinence, cerebellar choline and frontomesial N-acetylaspartate (NAA) were significantly increased. Findings showing that a cerebellar choline increase and a frontomesial NAA increase were detected at stable water integrals and creatine concentrations, serum electrolytes and red blood cell indices suggest that early brain recovery through abstinence does not simply reflect rehydration. This might indicate that even the adult brain has capacities for regrowth and further understanding of the mechanisms of recovery of alcoholics' brains may result in a valuable model of brain regeneration with relevance for other disorders.
 ...
PMID:[A review of the neuroimaging studies of alcoholism]. 1824 Jun 49