Baló’s Encephalitis Periaxialis Concentrica

Abstract

In 1928, Baló described a law student with an unusual fatal illness marked by aphasia and a right hemiplegia, with later optic neuritis and normal cerebrospinal fluid. At autopsy, he found a disease of the white matter characterised by foci varying in size from a lentil to that of a pigeon’s egg and presenting gray softening and, in part, concentricity, where the medullary sheaths were destroyed and the axis cylinders were intact. He was uncertain whether this was a variant of acute multiple sclerosis or of Schilder’s disease. The basis of concentric sclerosis is still unclear though current opinion favours a variant of acute multiple sclerosis.

The Desire for Amputation or Paralyzation: Evidence for Structural Brain Anomalies in Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID)

“…Somatoparaphrenia patients misidentify the ownership of a left-sided body part [3,30]; in misoplegia the loss of recognition goes along with hatred of a body part [31,32]; in alien hand syndrome involuntary movements and estrangement from a particular limb are prominent [33,34] and asomatognosonia patients lack awareness of a limb [30], although sometimes this misconception can (temporarily) be corrected. The right posterior insula seems to be a crucial structure in patients with disturbed sensation of limb ownership [4,9], but some case-studies also report patients with alien hand syndrome and asomatognosia with single lesions in the corpus callosum [33,35] or premotor cortex [36] respectively.…”

Un déficit neurologique multifocal pseudo-infectieux révélant une encéphalomyélite aiguë disséminée

“…Le tableau clinique d'emblée très bruyant, l'absence d'épisodes neurologiques antérieurs, ainsi que la taille et la morphologie des images ne plaidaient pas en faveur d'une SEP typique. La maladie de Balo (images IRM concentriques [5]), la maladie de Marburg (images IRM généralement plus étendues, touchant l'ensemble d'un lobe et se rehaussant de manière partielle et inconstante après injection de Gd) et la maladie de Schilder (survenant préférentiellement chez l'enfant [6]) furent éliminées. Finalement, seule une forme pseudotumorale de SEP posait véritablement un problème diagnostique.…”