Neurological Disorders

The JAK-STAT pathway in cytokine receptor signalling can activate STATs, which can bind to DNA and allow the transcription of genes involved in immune cell division, survival, activation and recruitment. For example, STAT1 can enable the transcription of genes which inhibit cell division and stimulate inflammation.

Emotionalism is the abnormal expression of emotions like crying and laughing and could follow stroke, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Emotionalism has been known to respond therapeutically to different classes of drugs including tricyclic antidepressants like imipramine, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) like sertraline and citalopram, anticonvulsants like lamotrigine, dopamine precursors like levodopa and NMDA receptor antagonists like dextromethorphan. Classical antipsychotics are hardly prescribed for emotionalism alone without psychotic features. In this case report, an eighty year old woman with a dominant fronto-temporal infarctive stroke with right faciohemiparesis presented with frequent crying (dacrystic) episodes after a month of onset of stroke and who did not satisfy DSM IV criteria for depression nor had other psychotic features. Serial trial of SSRIs and dextromethorphan/quinidine could not help until risperidone, an antipsychotic was introduced with resolution of crying episodes. The response to risperidone after trial of SSRIs and dextromethorphan/quinidine which are considered the gold standard for post-stroke emotionalism (PSE), could be another therapeutic dimension in the management of emotionalism in general and PSE in particular.

Patients presenting with multiple cranial neuropathies are not uncommon in neurologic clinical practice. The evaluation of these patients can often be overwhelming due to the vast and complicated etiologies as well as the potential for devastating neurologic outcomes. Dysfunction of the cranial nerves can occur anywhere in their course from intrinsic brainstem dysfunction to their peripheral courses. The focus of this review will be on the extramedullary causes of multiple cranial neuropathies as discussion of the brainstem syndromes is more relevant when considering intrinsic disorders of the brainstem. The goals are to provide the reader with an overview of those extramedullary conditions that have a predilection for causing multiple cranial nerve palsies. In turn, this will serve to provide a practical and systematic approach to allow for a more targeted diagnostic evaluation of this, often cumbersome, presentation.

Anti-anhedonic effects were specifically related to increased glucose metabolism in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and putamen. Our study emphasizes the importance of the glutamatergic system in treatment-refractory bipolar depression, particularly in the treatment of symptoms such as anhedonia.

A disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures.Epilepsy may occur as a result of a genetic disorder or an acquired brain injury, such as a trauma or stroke. During a seizure, a person experiences abnormal behaviour, symptoms and sensations, sometimes including loss of consciousness. There are few symptoms between seizures.Epilepsy is usually treated by medication and in some cases by surgery, devices or dietary changes.