Vol 7, No 4 (2013)

In the article, basic pathogenic mechanisms of progression of cerebral atherosclerosis leading to ischemic stroke are discussed. The ultrasound, morphological and biochemical predictors of changes of the atherosclerotic plaque structure are presented. A multifactorial nature of pathogenesis of progressing cerebral atherosclerosis as a key cause of ischemic stroke determines the need for further studies of different aspects of this problem, from vessel and brain morphology to metabolic parameters and various blood characteristics (biochemical, lipid, conformational, and hemostatic).

One of the most important inherited neurodegenerative disorders, Huntington’s disease (HD), is characterized by cerebral atrophy, the features of which need to be clarified. MRI morphometry allows assessing quantitatively the atrophy of different brain regions, and this method may be regarded as a potential biomarker of neurodegeneration. We used whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and region-of-interest (ROI) morphometry in 24 patients with HD, 10 preclinical HD gene carriers and 9 controls. On whole-brain VBM patients had significantly lower grey matter in the caudate, the putamen, and the pre- and postcentral gyri bilaterally compared to controls, while on ROI morphometry the grey matter volume decrease in patients was seen in the caudate, the putamen and the pallidum bilaterally. In clinically unaffected gene carriers the pallidum, the putamen, and the pre-and postcentral gyri bilaterally were larger and the left pallidum was smaller compared to controls. We found more pronounced atrophy of a dominant hemisphere in patients and gene carriers, as well as negative correlation between basal ganglia and cortical structures volumes and the mutation severity, motor and cognitive impairment.

The purpose of the study was to assess clinical effects and dynamics of the changes in the parameters of lipid peroxidation and antioxidant system in patients with acute traumatic brain injury and combined injuries treated with the peptide drug cortexin. As the result of this work, the ability of the drug to reduce the intensity of the of lipid peroxidation process in brain injury was revealed. Clinical effect was expressed by the reduction of asthenic symptoms, significant improvement of attention and memory, and increase of the working capacity and the tempo of mental activity, which was confirmed by psychometric tests. It was shown that cortexin use in an acute period of traumatic brain injury and combined cranio-facial injury significantly increased the patients’ quality of life, had sedative and antidepressant effect, reduced epileptic activity and decreased the frequency of epileptic seizures.

In the human dorsal thalamus nuclei (VA, VL, AV, AM, AD, and MD), neurons were studied using Goldgi staining method. The method allowed identifying different species of long-axon neurons (type I): densely branched bushy neurons, bushy spine neurons, large and gigantic bushy neurons, tree-like (arborescent) neurons, brush-like neurons, double-tufted neurons, and intermediary (or combined) neurons. Species of sparsely branched neurons were also identified: short-dendritic neurons and reticular neurons. Type II neurons – short-axon neurons (interneurons) – were presented by smooth-dendritic, shaggy-dendritic and long-dendritic neurons. A classification of the nerve cells of the dorsal thalamic nuclei is proposed, and some principal features of their internal organization are established.

A new method, resting-state fMRI, has been proposed recentl for studying basic sensory, emotional, and cognitive processes in healthy and neurologically affected subjects. It allows assessing spontaneous co-activation of different CNS regions in rest on the basis of temporal characteristics of neuronal activity of anatomically separated brain regions. On resting-state fMRI studies, the existence of stable and functionally linked restingstate brain networks was shown, that is important in the context of basic mechanisms of neurological disorders. We performed a first resting-state fMRI study in Russia in the group of 10 healthy subjects and revealed a clear default mode network pattern which was consistent with data in published papers. Examining of integrative system of functionally interacting brain regions with the use of resting-state fMRI can provide new insights into large-scale neuronal communication within the human brain.