We describe a patient, 61-year-old left-handed Japanese woman, who presented with left hemi-facial metamorphopsia after infarct that extended from the splenium of the corpus callosum to the major forceps on the right side. Past medical history revealed a right putaminal hemorrhage with amnesic aphasia. She complained that the right side of people’s faces, that is, the left side when visualized by her, seemed distorted. When she looked at other people’s faces, the right half of the faces looked smaller than the left half, and the eyes, noses, and mouths appeared to be hanging toward the center of their faces. This phenomenon was observed for whomever she visualized. She stated that objects other than the face looked normal. Her visual acuity and visual field were normal. Callosal disconnection syndrome was not presented. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain on diffusion weighted image revealed a high intensity area that extended from the splenium of the corpus callosum to the major forceps on the right side. Electroencephalography did not show any epileptic discharge. Her visual symptoms improved gradually. The mechanism of hemi-facial metamorphopsia remains obscure. We hypothesized that this patient developed left hemi-facial metamorphopsia because of the disrupted transfer of visual information of the left side of face at the splenium of the corpus callosum and the major forceps, which may be the responsible lesion of hemi-facial metamorphopsia.

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We report on the case of a 77-year-old male with genetically proven spinocerebellar ataxia type 31 (SCA31) who had dystonia. He was referred to our hospital for evaluation following a 6-year history of slowly progressive unsteadiness of his left leg during walking and dysarthria at the age of 62 years old. On the basis of his symptoms, we diagnosed him as spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD), and prescribed taltirelin hydrate. However, his symptoms continued to worsen. He required a cane for walking at the age of 63 years, and a wheelchair at the age of 66 years. He was admitted to our hospital following acute cerebral infarction at the age of 77 years. On examination at admission, right hemiparesis and cerebellar ataxia were detected. And left hallux moved involuntarily toward the top surface of the foot at rest, that is dystonia. The dystonia was not associated with cerebral infarction, because it had been several years with dystonia that he got cerebral infarction. Genetic analysis revealed that this patient harbored a heterozygous SCA31 mutation. Previously there have been no reports of SCA31 associated with dystonia. Our case report support clinical heterogeneity of SCA31, and highlight the importance of considering this type in patients with dystonia and ataxia. Patients with the combination of dystonia and ataxia and a family history of a neurodegenerative disorder should be tested for SCA31.

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A 83 years old woman was slipped and injured with right femoral neck fracture. After three days from the fracture, she underwent an artificial head bone replacement operation. Immediately after surgery, she complained of chest discomfort, nausea and dyspnea. A few hours later, she became comatose. Brain CT showed no abnormality and clinical diagnosis of heart failure was made without pulmonary embolism on enhanced chest CT. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain next day showed multiple small patchy hyperintense lesion in bilateral hemispheres on diffusion-weighted images (DWI), producing a “star field pattern’’. Based on Criteria of Gurd, this patient had one major criterion and four minor criteria. And according to the Criteria of Schonfeld, this patient had 5 points, consistent with clinical diagnosis of fat embolism. Because of these criteria, she was diagnosed as cerebral fat embolism syndrome. We started supported care and edaravon. Two weeks after surgery, her condition recovered and remaind to stuporous state even six month after surgery. We experienced a typical case of cerebral fat embolism, after bone surgery with diagnostic findings on MRI-DWI. Diagnosis of cerebral fat embolism syndrome requires a history of long bone fracture and/or replacing surgery with typical finding on MRI images, such as “star field pattern’’.

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A 69-year-old woman was admitted due to gradual progression of daytime sleepiness and forgetfulness over a period of approximately 1 month. Bradycardia and hypothermia were observed on admission, and neurological examination revealed memory disturbance, mild dysarthria, and bradykinesia. Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images of the brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicated signal hyperintensity in the region bordering the lateral and third ventricles. Serum anti-aquaporin 4 (AQP4) antibody was detected. The patient had no history or findings of optic neuritis or myelitis, and she was diagnosed as anti-AQP4 antibody-associated disorder. Diencephalon lesion and/or symptoms are rarely observed at the onset of neuromyelitis optica. Differential diagnosis of this disorder is necessary in cases manifesting diencephalon symptoms or involving lesions bordering the third ventricle without evidence of previous optic neuritis or myelitis.

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A 37-year-old woman presented with psychiatric symptoms. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed pleocytosis and increased protein. The patient was diagnosed with limbic encephalitis on the basis of the clinical course. However, remarkable hyponatremia was noted throughout the clinical course, leading to a diagnosis of cerebral salt wasting syndrome (CSWS). The hyponatremia was alleviated by supplementation with sodium and water. The findings seen in this case indicate that differentiation between syndrome of inappropriate of antidiuretic hormone and CSWS is important in cases of hyponatremia accompanied by central nervous system disease.

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A rare cause of trigeminal neuralgia is malignant lymphoma which spread along the trigeminal nerve. We report a 79-year-old male presented with 4-month history of neuralgic pain in right cheek. He was diagnosed as classical trigeminal neuralgia. It had improved through medication of carbamazepine. Four months later, the dull pain unlike neuralgia complicated on the right cheeks, it was ineffective with the medication. Furthermore, diplopia and facial palsy as the other cranial nerve symptoms appeared. Gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed contrast-enhanced mass lesion extend both external pterygoid muscle and brainstem through the swelling trigeminal nerve. The patient was pathological diagnosed of diffuse large B cell lymphoma by biopsy. Malignant lymphoma should be considered in the different diagnosis of cases with a minimal single cranial nerve symptom.

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We report a patient of 32-year-old female with central IgG4-related disease. She developed headache and visual disturbance. On examination, she revealed diabetes insipidus, retrobulbar neuritis, hyperreflexia and limb weakness. Her laboratory findings showed serum IgG4 elevation, pleocytosis and protein elevation in cerebrospinal fluid. Chest CT showed a nodular lesion in the S8 of the left lung. Cranial and spinal magnetic resonance images with gadolinium contrast material showed cranial, cervical and lumbosacral hypertrophic pachymeningitis associated with infundibulo-hypophysitis. Pathological findings of the left frontal dura mater revealed lymphoplasmacytic inflammatory cell infiltrate with dense fibrosis. IgG4 immunohistochemistry showed no IgG4 + plasma cells within the inflammatory infiltrate. During treatment with intravenous pulse methylprednisolone followed by oral prednisolone, she revealed recovery of visual acuity with improvement of hypertrophic pachymeningitis and normalization of serum IgG4. This is a first report of IgG4-related hypertrophic pachymeningitis which involved cranial, cervical and lumbosacral regions as well as infundibulo-hypophysitis in a young female.

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A 26-year-old male was admitted because of a fever, headache and disturbance of consciousness with lymph node swelling of the neck two days after developing a rash. A neurological examination revealed restlessness with irritability in response to sensory stimuli, such as an injection. Diffusion-weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a hyperintense ovoid lesion in the splenium of the corpus callosum, which showed a low coefficient in the ADC map: the lesion disappeared after 22 days. An enzyme immunoassay (EIA) of the serum and cerebrospinal IgM were positive for rubella virus. The patient was therefore diagnosed with rubella encephalitis. He recovered gradually and was discharged on day 19 after the onset of symptoms without any sequelae. To our knowledge, this is the first case of rubella encephalitis presenting as clinically mild encephalitis/encephalopathy with a reversible splenial lesion (MERS). Although the exact mechanism underlying the development of rubella encephalitis is not well established, this case indicated that our patient had an immune-mediated secondary encephalitis. According to the survey of the pandemic of rubella from 2012 to April 2013 in Japan, the incidence of rubella encephalitis is thought to be relatively higher than was previously noted. This emphasizes the importance of vaccination for preventing encephalitis.

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A 79-year-old man was admitted due to progressive weakness of both hands for two and a half years. Neurologically, he presented with weakness of the upper limbs, predominantly in the left distal portion, and hypoactive deep tendon reflexes. Nerve conduction studies were consistent with a motor and sensory demyelinating neuropathy. Sural nerve biopsy revealed a decrease of myelinated fibers with a predominance of larger diameter fibers. Widening of myelin lamellae and uncompacted myelin were detected on electron microscopy. Laboratory examinations showed IgM-kappa-type M-protein and anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG) antibody. He was diagnosed as having anti-MAG-associated demyelinating neuropathy based on the laboratory, electrophysiological, and pathological findings. While no bulbar symptoms or upper motor neuron signs were shown, the patient developed quadriparesis and respiratory failure after three years. Although anti-MAG-associated demyelinating neuropathy is usually characterized by sensory symptoms, particularly sensory ataxia, the present case indicates that motor symptoms such as quadriparesis and respiratory failure can be among the clinical manifestations of antiMAG-associated demyelinating neuropathy.

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A 39 year-old man was admitted to this hospital because of severe headache and vomiting. He had been suffering from lumbago about one month previously, and diplopia ten days previously. The neurological examination revealed disturbance of right eye abduction, no nuchal rigidity. The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) at the time of admission included erythrocytes (1,490/μl), white blood cell (62/μl) and increased level of protein (531 mg/dl), but no malignant cells were detected. He was treated as meningitis. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated heterogeneous intensity lesion in the left maxillary sinus and gadolinium enhancement of diffuse meninges and cranial nerves. Spine MRI showed gadolinium enhancement of lumbar spinal meninges and the cauda equina. Biopsy of the lesion in the left maxillary sinus was performed. The pathological findings demonstrated malignant melanoma. Because malignant cells were also observed in CSF, we diagnosed this case as leptomeningeal melanomatosis. Leptomeningeal carcinomatosis should be suspected when headache accompanied with pleomorphic clinical manifestations.

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[in Japanese]

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