This paper describes a method to support the field of Nondestructive Testing, especially, in radiographic inspection activities. It aims at detecting welded joints of oil pipelines in radiographs ...with Double Wall Double Image exposure. The proposed approach extracts information (windows of pixels) from the pipeline region in the radiographic image and then applies Deep Neural Network (DNN) models to identify which windows correspond to welded joints. We use pre-trained DNNs to map the knowledge from ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge to the welded joint context. The experiments consider 13 DNN models and 3 DNN input settings: stretched, proportional V and proportional H. Since, occasionally, radiographic images may be corrupted by some types of noise (e.g. white, impulsive), we also include experiments considering its influence on the DNNs behavior and its related results. The best combination provided an F-score average of 96.00% in the welded joint detection. The main contributions of this work are the proposed window extraction technique and a robust analysis of the noise influence on welded joint detection using different DNN models, input settings, exposure techniques and radiographic acquisition sources.
The Sotos syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by haploinsufficiency of
gene, with some individuals affected by epilepsy and, rarely, drug-resistant seizures. A 47-years-old ...female patient with Sotos syndrome was diagnosed with focal-onset seizures in left temporal lobe, left-side hippocampal atrophy, and neuropsychological testing with decreased performance in several cognitive domains. Patient was treated with left-side temporal lobe resection and developed complete awake seizure control in 3-years of follow-up, with marked improvement in quality-of-life. In selected, clinically concordant patients, resective surgeries may play a significant role in improving patient's quality of life and seizure control.
Brain edema is the leading cause of death in patients with malignant middle cerebral artery (MCA) infarction. Midline shift (MLS) has been used as a monohemispheric brain edema marker in several ...studies; however, it does not precisely measure brain edema. It is now possible to directly measure hemisphere brain volume. Knowledge about the time course of brain edema after malignant middle cerebral artery infarction may contribute to the condition's management.
Therefore, our goal was to evaluate the course of brain edema in patients with malignant MCA infarction treated with decompressive craniectomy (DC) using hemispheric volumetric measurements.
Patients were selected consecutively from a single tertiary hospital between 2013 and 2019. All patients were diagnosed with malignant middle cerebral artery infarction and underwent a decompressive craniectomy (DC) to treat the ischemic event. All computed tomography (CT) exams performed during the clinical care of these patients were analyzed, and the whole ischemic hemisphere volume was calculated for each CT scan.
We analyzed 43 patients (197 CT exams). Patients' mean age at DC was 51.72 range: 42-68 years. The mean time between the ischemic ictus and DC was 41.88 (range: 6-77) hours. The mean time between the ischemic event and the peak of hemisphere volume was 168.84 (95% confidence interval 142.08, 195.59) hours.
In conclusion, the peak of cerebral edema in malignant MCA infarction after DC occurred on the 7th day (168.84 h) after stroke symptoms onset. Further studies evaluating therapies for brain edema even after DC should be investigated.
The objective of the study was to analyze preoperative visual and verbal episodic memories in a homogeneous series of patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) and unilateral hippocampal ...sclerosis (HS) submitted to corticoamygdalohippocampectomy and its association with neuronal cell density of each hippocampal subfield.
The hippocampi of 72 right-handed patients were collected and prepared for histopathological examination. Hippocampal sclerosis patterns were determined, and neuronal cell density was calculated. Preoperatively, two verbal and two visual memory tests (immediate and delayed recalls) were applied, and patients were divided into two groups, left and right MTLE (36/36).
There were no statistical differences between groups regarding demographic and clinical data. Cornu Ammonis 4 (CA4) neuronal density was significantly lower in the right hippocampus compared with the left (p=0.048). The groups with HS presented different memory performance — the right HS were worse in visual memory test Complex Rey Figure, immediate (p=0.001) and delayed (p=0.009), but better in one verbal task RAVLT delayed (p=0.005). Multiple regression analysis suggested that the verbal memory performance of the group with left HS was explained by CA1 neuronal density since both tasks were significantly influenced by CA1 Logical Memory immediate recall (p=0.050) and Logical Memory and RAVLT delayed recalls (p=0.004 and p=0.001, respectively). For patients with right HS, both CA1 subfield integrity (p=0.006) and epilepsy duration (p=0.012) explained Complex Rey Figure immediate recall performance. Ultimately, epilepsy duration also explained the performance in the Complex Rey Figure delayed recall (p<0.001).
Cornu Ammonis 1 (CA1) hippocampal subfield was related to immediate and delayed recalls of verbal memory tests in left HS, while CA1 and epilepsy duration were associated with visual memory performance in patients with right HS.
•Patients with right HS showed less neuronal cell density in CA4.•Verbal memory is related with CA1 in those with left HS.•Visual memory is related with CA1 and epilepsy duration in right HS.
•DBS of the subthalamic nucleus improves quality of life.•DBS of the subthalamic nucleus reduces levodopa equivalent doses.•DBS of the subthalamic nucleus improves motor functions in both on and ...off-medication periods.
This study analyzed the influence of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (DBS) in motor parameters and patients' quality of life with Parkinson's disease (PD) evaluated before and after 12 months of the surgical procedure.
A cohort of 20 patients with PD who underwent DBS implantation in the subthalamic nucleus was included. Pre and on-DBS postoperative data in on and off-medication periods related to motor functions and quality of life, from the application of validated scales, were collected to verify possible relationships between changes in these parameters and the surgical procedure.
A significant decrease in the Hoehn and Yahr scale disease stage and in the levodopa equivalent dose (p < 0.001) was verified in the off-medication period when we compared baseline and post-12 months data. A significant decrease in dyskinesias (p = 0.009) was observed during the on-medication period by evaluating the UDysRS scale. Concerning motor functions verified through the UPDRS-III scale, it was obtained a significant reduction in total scores (p = 0.001), besides a decrease in rigidity scores for upper and lower limbs (p < 0.05) during the on-medication period. During the off-medication period, scores of UPDRS-III demonstrated a significant decrease, except for the ones related to speech and amplitude of resting tremor. Regarding the quality-of-life assessment, scores obtained from PDQ-39 showed that, after 12 months of electrode implantation, there was a significant decrease in mobility, daily living activity, and stigma parameters (p < 0.05).
Results obtained allow us to conclude that DBS of the subthalamic nucleus in patients with PD improves motor function in both on and off-medication periods, improvement of the disease stage in the off-medication period, with no change in the on-medication period, also an improvement in the patient's self-reported quality of life and a significant reduction in the dose of L-DOPA.
•Treatment for severe cerebellar tremor with bilateral thalamic deep brain stimulation.•Efficacy of ventral intermediate nucleus deep brain stimulation in reducing the severity of cerebellar ...tremor.•Efficacy of DBS on drug-resistant tremor secondary to alterations of the cerebellum or the dentato-rubro-thalamic pathways.
The presence of dysmorphic neurons with strong cytoplasmatic accumulation of heavy non‐phosphorylated neurofilament is crucial for the diagnostics of focal cortical dysplasia type II (FCDII). While ...ILAE's classification describes neocortical dysplasias, some groups have reported patients with mesial t abnormal neurons in the hippocampus of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Here we report a patient with such abnormal neurons in the hippocampus and compared it with previous reports of hippocampal dysplasia. Finally, we discuss the need for diagnostic criteria of hippocampal dysplasia.
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Depression is the most frequent psychiatric comorbidity seen in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) patients with hippocampal sclerosis (HS). Moreover, the HS is the most frequent pathological ...hallmark in MTLE-HS. Although there is a well-documented hippocampal volumetric reduction in imaging studies of patients with major depressive disorder, in epilepsy with comorbid depression, the true role of the hippocampus is not entirely understood. This study aimed to verify if patients with unilateral MTLE-HS and the co-occurrence of depression have differences in neuronal density of the hippocampal sectors CA1-CA4. For this purpose, we used a histopathological approach. This was a pioneering study with patients having both clinical disorders. However, we found no difference in hippocampal neuronal density when depression co-occurs in patients with epilepsy. In this series, CA1 had the lowest counting in both groups, and HS ILAE Type 1 was the most prevalent. More studies using histological assessments are needed to clarify the physiopathology of depression in MTLE-HS.
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