The crack epidemic, now a decade old, disabused neurologists of the idea that cocaine was a relatively safe drug. Acute neurologic complications of cocaine intoxication such as headaches, delirium, seizures, and strokes have now been amply delineated. Less clear is whether long-term cocaine use, uncomplicated by acute problems, can lead to structural or functional changes in the human brain. Br...

IMPORTANCE Measures of neuronal loss are likely good surrogates for clinical and radiological disease progression in Alzheimer disease (AD). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers of neuronal injury or neurodegeneration may offer usefulness in predicting disease progression and guiding outcome assessments and prognostic decisions in clinical trials of disease-modifying therapies. Visinin-like protei...

BACKGROUND Progressive brain atrophy is associated with the corticobasal degeneration syndrome (CBDS) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Regional differences in brain atrophy may reflect the clinical features of disease. OBJECTIVE To quantify the structural neuroanatomical differences between CBDS and PSP. DESIGN A survey of neurologic deficits was conducted in all patients. Voxel-ba...

Distinguishing neurodegenerative diseased patients (e.g., suffering from Alzheimer‟s Disease (AD)) from healthy individuals with the aid of MRI images is one of the challenges that need to be addressed in the field of Computational Anatomy (CA). A crucial feature in the analysis is the rate of atrophy of brain structures like the hippocampus or the ventricles. Until recently, analysis of atroph...

Parenchymatous cortical cerebellar atrophy (chronic atrophy of Purkinje’s cells). By Harry L. Parker (Section on Neurology) and James W. Kernohan (Section on Pathological Anatomy). From the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Brain 1933; 56: 191–212. With Subacute spino-cerebellar degeneration occurring in elderly patients. By J. G. Greenfield. From the National Hospital, Queen Square, London. B...

Amyloid-β accumulation in the brain is thought to be one of the earliest events in Alzheimer's disease, possibly leading to synaptic dysfunction, neurodegeneration and cognitive/functional decline. The earliest detectable changes seen with neuroimaging appear to be amyloid-β accumulation detected by (11)C-labelled Pittsburgh compound B positron emission tomography imaging. However, some individ...

OBJECTIVE To assess regions and patterns of brain atrophy in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) with normal cognition (PD-NC), mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), and dementia-level cognitive deficits (PDD). DESIGN Images were quantified using a region-of-interest approach and voxel-based morphometry analysis. We used a high-dimensional pattern classification approach to delineate brain reg...