Frontiers of neurology and neuroscience
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The caudate nucleus (CN) is composed of a head, body and tail. The head of the CN contributes to forming the floor of the lateral ventricle frontal horn. Moreover, the head, which is medially separated by the septum pellucidum extends beyond the anterior part of the thalamus, stroking the telencephalic cortex. ⋯ CN strokes are classified into hemorrhagic and ischemic. The clinical presentation of CN hemorrhage is often characterized by a clinical presentation mimicking subarachnoid hemorrhage, while clinical features of both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes included behavioral abnormalities dysarthria, movement disorders, language disturbances and memory loss. Most studies to date that have examined vascular CN pathologies have evidenced good outcomes.
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The term post-stroke dementia (PSD) is used to define any dementia occurring after stroke irrespective if the leading cause is vascular, degenerative or mixed. PSD is a frequent condition after stroke and its prevalence ranges from 6 to 32%. ⋯ There is an urgent need to find sensitive tools to detect post-stroke cognitive impairment as early as possible. The detection of cognitive impairment in the acute phase of stroke can offer valid information to the clinician on whether to set an early cognitive rehabilitation and to plan a more focused follow-up.
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The studies on hysteria and hypnotism probably constitute the most important long-term work of Jean-Martin Charcot and his school, starting around 1870 until Charcot's death in 1893. Désiré Bourneville, Charcot's sixth interne at La Salpêtrière, was probably instrumental in stimulating his mentor's interest in hysteria, while Charles Richet's 1875 article on somnambulism was the trigger for Charcot to introduce hypnotism into the management of hysterics. Albert Pitres, Paul Richer, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, Paul Sollier, Joseph Babinski, Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet became the most famous of Charcot's collaborators on hysteria, either as 'guardians of the temple' (Richer, Gilles de la Tourette, who defended their mentor's concepts against Hippolyte Bernheim and the Nancy school in the dispute during the 1880-1890s), or in renewing the field in psychology (Janet and Freud, in the 1890s) or clinical neurology (Babinski in the 1900s). ⋯ Babinski's pupil Clovis Vincent developed a treatment called torpillage (torpedoing) against war hysteria, associating painful galvanic current discharges with 'persuasion', but this was dismissed after the soldiers, considering it as torture, rebelled. After World War I, the neurological and psychiatric interest in hysteria again faded away, and this condition largely went back to the no-man's land, where it had been before Charcot initiated his studies. A comprehensive look at the evolution of ideas on hysteria in the followers of Charcot shows that contrary to a common and artificially maintained view over the years, the modernity of several of his concepts remains remarkable, including: (1) his traumatic theory, which encompassed sexual factors nearly 20 years before Freud; (2) his evolution towards psychological and emotional issues, which opened the way for Janet and Freud, but unfortunately was largely ignored by Babinski; (3) his strong claim against Bernheim of the similarity of mental states in hypnotism and hysteria, which has recently been confirmed by functional magnetic resonance imaging; (4) his 'dynamic lesion' hypothesis, which now correlates well with neurophysiological mechanisms also demonstrated by functional imaging.
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Front Neurol Neurosci · Jan 2011
Biography Historical ArticleJules Joseph Déjerine versus Pierre Marie.
Pierre Marie was one of Charcot's favorite pupils, and had hoped to succeed his great mentor at the Hospice de La Salpêtrière as professor of diseases of the nervous system. Charcot's friend and collaborator Alfred Vulpian was a senior physician at the Hôpital Bicêtre, a somewhat less prestigious hospital, and Jules Déjerine was his student. When Charcot died, Marie was too junior to be even a candidate, and Fulgence Raymond won the election in front of Déjerine and Brissaud. ⋯ Before World War I, Pierre Marie made the localization of aphasia the centerpiece of his personal feud with Jules Déjerine. In his extensive research on aphasia, Marie sharply contested the generally accepted views of Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke on the localization of the speech centre, while Déjerine strongly defended more localizationist views. This debate lacked a clear winner, but was fundamental because it questioned the relevance of anatomical findings in understanding higher brain function.
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The confines of this chapter are necessarily arbitrary. Its limits are partly imposed by the extent of my reading (all the references have been read in full!) and partly by the restrictions of space - as a consequence of that restriction there are innumerable examples which I have been unable to cover. I have concentrated, though not exclusively, on the literature of the 19th century. ⋯ My reading has been in English, but has extended to works translated from Spanish, French, German and Russian. I have concentrated on a small group of neurological conditions whose descriptions are of particular interest in the depth of observation they display, a depth suggesting they have stemmed from first-hand experience. They are grouped under the headings of cerebrovascular disease, syncopal attacks and epilepsy.