Biomedical subjects

Christine Born

Publications and source records attributed to Christine Born.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

"Hair-on-end" skull induced by long-term G-CSF treatment in severe congenital neutropenia.

"Hair-on-end" skull changes are typically seen in individuals suffering from thalassaemia. They are induced by widening of the diploic space due to marrow expansion that is a consequence of ineffective and excessive erythropoiesis. We present a child with severe congenital neutropenia who exhibited the typical hair-on-end sign on plain skull radiographs and MRI. In this patient the skull changes were very likely induced by the expansion of white blood cell precursors induced by long-term daily injections of recombinant human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) to treat his confounding disease. This case report is the first description of hair-on-end changes associated with the use of G-CSF.

Child↗

PubMed2006

Novel splice site mutation in the caveolin-3 gene leading to autosomal recessive limb girdle muscular dystrophy.

Mutations in CAV3 gene encoding the protein caveolin-3 are associated with autosomal dominant limb girdle muscular dystrophy 1C, rippling muscle disease, hyperCKemia, distal myopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and rare autosomal recessive limb girdle muscular dystrophy phenotypes. In a 57-year-old patient with asymmetric limb girdle weakness, we detected a novel homozygous intronic mutation (IVS1 + 2T > C) of the CAV3 gene. This is the first splicing mutation reported for CAV3. These findings add to the clinical and genetic variability of CAV3 mutations.

Base Sequence↗

PubMed2006

Comprehensive dissection of the medial temporal lobe in AD: measurement of hippocampus, amygdala, entorhinal, perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices using MRI.

BACKGROUND: Early pathological involvement of specific medial temporal lobe areas is characteristic for Alzheimer's disease (AD). OBJECTIVE: To determine the extent of regional medial temporal lobe atrophy, including hippocampus, amygdala, and entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortices in mild AD patients and healthy controls, and to compare diagnostic accuracy across volumetric markers. METHODS: We studied 34 patients with clinically probable AD and 22 healthy elderly control subjects. Regional volumetric measures were obtained from volumetric T1-weighted MRI scans after accounting for global brain atrophy using affine transformation into standard space. RESULTS: Volumes of medial temporal lobe structures were significantly smaller in AD patients than in controls with exception of the left entorhinal cortex. The degree of atrophy was comparable between all structures. Diagnostic accuracy (number of correctly allocated cases divided by number of all cases) was highest for the right parahippocampal cortex with 85%, but only slightly lower for the right hippocampus and right entorhinal cortex with 82% and 84%. Using a linear combination of markers, the unilateral volumes of the right hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex and perirhinal cortex yielded an accuracy of 93%. CONCLUSION: Extent of atrophy is similar between the different regions of the medial temporal lobe in mild AD.Volume measurements of medial temporal lobe structures in addition to the hippocampus only yield improved diagnostic accuracy if a combination of these structures is used.

Aged↗

PubMed2006

Amygdala volume and depressive symptoms in patients with borderline personality disorder.

BACKGROUND: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a high prevalence of comorbid psychiatric disorders, including major depression (MD). The aim of this study was to examine whether a co-occurrence of MD is associated with structural changes in the amygdala of BPD patients. METHODS: Twenty-five right-handed, female patients with BPD and 25 matched healthy control subjects were examined. Diagnoses of BPD and MD were made according to DSM IV. Depressive symptomatology was determined with the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD). Magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed with 1.5 T Magnetom Vision (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). The software program "BRAINS" was applied for brain volumetry and segmentation. The amygdala was delineated as "region of interest." RESULTS: Comparison of amygdala volumes between the whole group of BPD patients and control subjects revealed no significant difference. Amygdala volumes in both hemispheres were significantly larger in BPD patients with MD compared with those without MD. There was a significant correlation in BPD patients between left amygdala volume and depressive symptoms as measured by HAMD. CONCLUSIONS: Correlation of amygdala volume with depression in BPD patients might indicate a causal relationship. Future studies should clarify whether amygdala enlargement is a risk factor for MD in BPD patients or a consequence of the affective disorder.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Reduced hippocampal volume correlates with executive dysfunctioning in major depression.

OBJECTIVE: Dysfunction of neuronal plasticity or remodelling seems to contribute to the pathopysiology of major depression and may cause the well-documented hippocampal changes in depression. We aimed to investigate whether reduced hippocampal volumes correlate with executive dysfunctioning or memory dysfunctioning or with depression severity. METHODS: We recruited 34 inpatients with a previous or current episode of major depression from the department of psychiatry at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany. We examined the 34 patients and 34 healthy control subjects with structural high resolution MRI. We assessed cognitive functions with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and severity of depression with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. RESULTS: Hippocampal volumes and frontal lobe volumes were significantly smaller in patients, compared with healthy control subjects. Furthermore, lower hippocampal volumes were correlated with poorer performance in the WCST. No significant correlations were found between hippocampal volumes and RAVLT performance or severity of depression. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings emphasize that patients with reduced hippocampal volumes show more executive dysfunctions than their counterparts. Thus, the mechanisms resulting in reduced hippocampal volumes seem to be related to the development of major depression.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Classifying brain states and determining the discriminating activation patterns: Support Vector Machine on functional MRI data.

In the present study, we applied the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm to perform multivariate classification of brain states from whole functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) volumes without prior selection of spatial features. In addition, we did a comparative analysis between the SVM and the Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD) classifier. We applied the methods to two multisubject attention experiments: a face matching and a location matching task. We demonstrate that SVM outperforms FLD in classification performance as well as in robustness of the spatial maps obtained (i.e. discriminating volumes). In addition, the SVM discrimination maps had greater overlap with the general linear model (GLM) analysis compared to the FLD. The analysis presents two phases: during the training, the classifier algorithm finds the set of regions by which the two brain states can be best distinguished from each other. In the next phase, the test phase, given an fMRI volume from a new subject, the classifier predicts the subject's instantaneous brain state.

Aged↗

PubMed2003

Larger amygdala volumes in first depressive episode as compared to recurrent major depression and healthy control subjects.

BACKGROUND: The aim of our study was to test the hypothesis that amygdala volumes are reduced in patients with recurrent major depression compared with first episode patients. METHODS: Using structural magnetic resonance imaging, we compared 30 inpatients with first-episode depression and 27 inpatients with recurrent major depression (DSM-IV) with healthy volunteer subjects from the local community matched for age, gender, and handedness. RESULTS: Patients with first-episode depression showed enlarged amygdala volumes compared with patients with recurrent major depression and healthy control subjects. No significant differences were found between patients with recurrent depression and healthy control subjects. No significant correlations were found between amygdala volumes and age of onset, illness duration, or severity of depression. CONCLUSIONS: Larger amygdala volumes in patients with first-episode depression may result from higher amygdala metabolism and blood flow. Additionally, disease progression with stress-related excitotoxic processes during recurrent depressive episodes might result in decreased amygdala volumes. Prospective investigations to investigate amygdala changes during the course of depression are needed.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Enlargement of the amygdala in patients with a first episode of major depression.

BACKGROUND: The amygdala plays a crucial role in the mediation of affective behavior in humans and is implemented in the limbic-thalamic-cortical network that is supposed to modulate human mood. The aim of the present study was to measure the amygdala volumes in patients with a first episode of major depression. METHODS: Thirty inpatients with a first episode of depression were compared with 30 healthy volunteers matched for age, gender, handedness, and education by performing structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of the amygdala. RESULTS: Patients showed increased amygdala volumes in both hemispheres as compared to healthy control subjects. No significant correlations were found between amygdala volumes and age, age of onset, illness duration, or severity of depression in the patient group. CONCLUSIONS: Enlarged amygdala volumes in patients with a first episode of major depression might be due to enhanced blood flow in the amygdala rather than to a neurodevelopmental structural predisposition to major depression.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Hippocampal changes in patients with a first episode of major depression.

OBJECTIVE: Previous work suggests that patients with unipolar depression may have structural as well as functional abnormalities in limbic-thalamic-cortical networks, which are hypothesized to modulate human mood states. A core area in these networks is the hippocampus. In the present study, differences in volumes of hippocampal gray and white matter between patients with a first episode of major depression and healthy comparison subjects were examined. METHOD: Thirty patients with a first episode of major depression and 30 healthy comparison subjects who were matched for age, gender, handedness, and education were examined with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: Male patients with a first episode of major depression had significantly smaller hippocampal total and gray matter volumes than healthy male comparison subjects. Both male and female patients showed significant alterations of left-right asymmetry and significant reductions of left and right hippocampal white matter fibers in relation to healthy comparison subjects. Hippocampal measurements were not significantly correlated with clinical variables, such as age at onset of illness, illness duration, or severity of depression. CONCLUSIONS: These results are consistent with findings of structural abnormalities of the hippocampal formation in patients with major depression that were more pronounced in male patients. The authors' findings support the hypothesis that the hippocampus and its connections within limbic-cortical networks may play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of major depression.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A case of an upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to a ruptured dissection of a right aortic arch.

We report a case of severe upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage with a rare underlying cause. The patient was unconscious when he was admitted to the hospital. No chest radiogram was performed. Routine diagnostic measures, including endoscopy, failed to reveal the origin of the bleeding, which was believed to originate from the esophagus secondary to a peptic ulcer or varices. Exploratory laparotomy added no further information, but contrast-enhanced multislice computed tomography (MSCT) of the chest showed dextroposition of the widened aortic arch with a ruptured type-B dissection and a consecutive aorto-esophageal fistula (AEF). The patient died on the day of admission. Noninvasive MSCT angiography gives rapid diagnostic information on patients with occult upper gastrointestinal bleeding and should be considered before more invasive conventional angiography or surgery.

Aortic Dissection↗