Purpose of Review In 2016, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern following a cluster of associated neurological disorders and neonatal malformations. Our aim is to review the clinical and neuroimaging findings seen in congenital Zika syndrome. Recent Findings ZIKV injures neural progenitor cells in the hippocampus, a brain region important for learning, memory, cognition, and emotion/stress response. Positron emission tomography has revealed global neuroinflammation in ZIKV infection in animal models. Summary Congenital Zika syndrome is associated with a spectrum of brain abnormalities, including microcephaly, parenchymal calcifications, malformations of cortical development and defective neuronal migration, corpus callosum abnormalities, ventriculomegaly, and brainstem and cerebellar abnormalities.
A 59 year-old woman presented with 15 days history of progressive gait instability and slurred speech. She had recurrence of breast cancer diagnosed five years before. Neurological examination showed dysarthria and ataxia. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presented hyperintense sign in the superior cerebellar vermis and upper cerebellar hemispheres, without atrophy ( Figure). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) revealed lymphocytic pleocytosis. Cerebellar degeneration is one of the most common neurological paraneoplastic syndromes. The most frequently associated tumors are: breast, ovary and lung cancer, and also lymphoma 1 . Early brain MRI is frequently normal or shows a diffuse enlargement of cerebellar hemispheres; rarely, there are signal changes in the cerebellar cortex 2 . After a few months, atrophy of the brainstem and cerebellum may appear.
Background:The aim was to electrophysiologically evaluate changes in the peripheral and central auditory systems in individuals with neurofibromatosis type 1 who underwent formal auditory training.
Material and methods:The sample consisted of 6 individuals aged between 9 and 15 years. The procedures involved anamnesis, meatoscopy, brainstem auditory potentials and long-latency evoked potentials, and behavioral tests of central auditory processing. All individuals were given 9 weekly sessions of formal auditory training.Results: After therapeutic intervention we observed improved performance in auditory closure (p = 0.014) and figure-background discrimination for verbal sounds (p = 0.025). There were no significant changes in brainstem auditory evoked potentials. However, the P300 of the longlatency auditory evoked potential showed significant differences for the left ear in terms of latencies of waves N2 (p = 0.05) and P3 (p = 0.05) and the amplitude of N2-P3 (p = 0.05).
Conclusions: Therapeutic intervention by means of formal auditory training is effective in rehabilitating central auditory processing disorder.There were improved responses in both behavioral and electrophysiological assessments, which were maintained for at least 4 months.
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