65 patients were selected to assess variations in third ventricular width. The patients suffered from various extrapyramidal movement disorders, and all had undergone stereotactic VL thalamotomies. Third ventricular width was correlated with age, sex, diagnosis and intercommissural distance. Based upon the analysis of somatosensory response mappings, a medial displacement of the thalamocapsular border was demonstrated for patients with narrow third ventricles.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Percutaneous cervical cordotomy.

Cordotomy should be reserved for patients with intractable pain resistant to conservative treatment that is not of a dysaesthetic type. The high cervical percutaneous technique permits exploitation of the principles of stereotactic surgery, especially physiological localization of the lesion site. The induction by 100 Hz stimulation of a warm or cool tingling in some portion of the contralateral half of the body without muscle tetanization ensures location within the spinothalamic tract while attention to the somatotopographic organization of the responses permits a certain degree of tailoring of the extent of analgesia to the patient's needs. During 264 consecutive procedures the spinothalamic tract was successfully located in 99% with a 0.3% incidence of significant persistent paresis.

Back Pain↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Sensory organization of the human thalamus.

A computerized program has been developed for on-line display and tape-library storage of stimulation-mapping data collected during stereotactic procedures. Using computer-generated displays of pooled clinical physiological data it has been possible to map through the upper midbrain and thalamus the lemniscal, spinoquintothalamic, auditory, vestibular, visual, extrapyramidal, and motor pathways, as well as the location of the pia. Each system is recognizable by a stereotyped, artificial, somatotopically organized stimulation-induced response that is devoid of modality information and independent of the site and parameters of stimulation.

Auditory Pathways↗