Dementia is frequent after ischemic stroke, occurring in one-fourth of the elderly patients in the authors' cohort. The clinical determinants of dementia include the location and severity of the presenting stroke, vascular risk factors such as diabetes mellitus and prior stroke, and host characteristics such as older age, fewer years of education, and nonwhite race/ethnicity. The results also suggest that concomitant AD plays an etiologic role in approximately one-third of cases of dementia after stroke.

Objective Whether febrile status epilepticus (FSE) produces hippocampal sclerosis (HS) and temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has long been debated. Our objective is to determine if FSE produces acute hippocampal injury that evolves to HS. Methods FEBSTAT and two affiliated studies prospectively recruited 226 children aged 1 month to 6 years with FSE and controls with simple febrile seizures. All had acute MRIs and follow-up MRIs were obtained at approximately 1 year later in the majority. Visual interpretation by two neuroradiologists informed only of subject age was augmented by hippocampal volumetrics, analysis of the intra-hippocampal distribution of T2 signal, and apparent diffusion coefficients. Results Hippocampal T2 hyperintensity, maximum in Sommer's sector, occurred acutely after FSE in 22 of 226 children in association with increased volume. Follow-up MRIs obtained on 14 of the 22 with acute T2 hyperintensity showed HS in 10 and reduced hippocampal volume in 12. In contrast, follow-up of 116 children without acute hyperintensity showed abnormal T2 signal in only 1 (following another episode of FSE). Furthermore, compared to controls with simple febrile seizures, FSE subjects with normal acute MRIs had abnormally low right to left hippocampal volume ratios, smaller hippocampi initially and reduced hippocampal growth. Interpretation Hippocampal T2 hyperintensity after FSE represents acute injury often evolving to a radiological appearance of HS after one year. Furthermore, impaired growth of normal appearing hippocampi after FSE suggests subtle injury even in the absence of T2 hyperintensity. Longer follow-up is needed to determine the relationship of these findings to TLE.

This prospective study demonstrates that children with FSE are at risk for acute hippocampal injury and that a substantial number also have abnormalities in hippocampal development. Follow-up studies are in progress to determine the long-term outcomes in these children.

(1)H MR spectroscopic imaging measures of the primary motor cortex N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) concentration and ratio of NAA to creatine, central motor conduction time to the tibialis anterior, and motor unit number estimation significantly differed between ALS, its subsets, and control subjects, suggesting they have potential to provide insight into the pathobiology of these disorders.

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