[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of early undernutrition on cortical dendritic growth using the Golgi-Cox method.
Newborn mice, ICR-JCL strain, were divided into the undernourished group and the control group.The undernourished mice were raised in litters of 16-18 from birth through 20 days, while the control mice were nursed in litters of 6.After weaning the pups of both groups were provided with an unlimited balanced ration.On 15, 20, 30, 60 and 100 days of age, the dendritic spread of the cortical pyramidal cells of layers N-V of the parietal area was examined with Golgi-Cox staining in the mice of both groups.
On 20 and 30 days of age, the number of intersections of dendrites with concentric circles drawn at radii of 30μm, 60μm and 80μm from the perikaryon was significantly less in the undernourished than in the control.On 60 days of age, it was significantly less in the undernourished animals at vadic of 60μm and 80μm between both groups.Even on 100 days of age, it was still significantly less in the undernourished at radius of 80μm. On the other hand, the number of dendrites arising from the perikaryal surface did not show any significant difference between both groups.
In this study, the undernourished animals showed a delayed dendritic growth and in spite of nutritional rehabilitation after weaning, their dendritic catch-up growth was incomplete.This suggests that the learning capacities and the adaptive behavioral patterns at later age might be affected by the undernutrition during infancy.

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The autoregressive analysis of the “ eyes-closing reaction ” (Fukuyama) of EEG in cyclic vomiting was studied in 7 cases of patients (4 boys and 3 girls), 5-7 year of age, with the eyes closed and open during the attack and at the reconvalescent stages.The EEG were recorded from scalp electrodes at PF ₁, PF ₂, C ₃, C ₄, 0 ₁ and 0 ₂ regions according to the “ 10-20 ” international system.
The records were stored on the analog tape during the 10 seconds period of rest with the eyes closed and then for 70 seconds continuously with the eyes open.Each 10 second artifact free epoch of record was digitized at 50 samples/sec.and the natural frequency, the damping coefficient, the damping time, the time constant and the mutual information amount of component with the eyes closed and open were calculated by the method of autoregressive analysis (Sato and Ono, 1975, 1976) with a minicomputer PDP 11/40 (DEC).The results were summerized as follows:
1) The mean frequency of the frontal beta and the central theta rhythms shifted to the 1 Hz lower frequency with the eyes open during the attack than during the reconvalescent stage.
2) The mean percentage of powerintensity of alpha activity to that of the high order activity was significantly more decreased at the occipital region, while that of delta and theta activities at the frontal and the central regions were significantly more increased with the eyes open during the attack than during the reconvalescent stage.
3) The duration of oscillatory process of the frontal alpha and theta rhythms was significantly shorter with the eyes open during the reconvalescent stage.On the other hand, the longer duration of beta rhythm and the shorter duration of delta rhythm with the eyes open were observed during the attack stage.
4) During the period of rest with the eyes open, the mutual information amount of alpha and theta rhythms was reduced during the reconvalescent, whereas that of delta rhythm decreased during the attack stage.
5) According to Freeman's hypothesis“ K-Set of neural mass action ” (1975), the first order autoregressive activity of nonoscillatory process may be given as KO, KI-Sets and the second order activity of oscillatory process as a KII-Set.Therefore, it was speculated that the “eyesclosing reaction ” (Fukuyama) of EEG in cyclic vomiting might involve the selective decrease of KO, KISets in neural mass action.

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The successful administration of very large doses of sodium valproate (Epilim, Depakene) in the treatment of a patient with status epilepticus is reported. The patient, a sevenyear-old girl with cerebral palsy (righthemiplegia) and epilesy (Lennox syndrome), showed tonic spasm of status epilepticus, despite treatment with large doses of various antiepileptic drugs.
The serum levels of anticonvulsants were: diphenylhydantoin, 8.2μg/ml;phenobarbital, 14μg/ml;and sodium valproate, 137.9 μ g/ml. These drug levels were calculated in therapeutic range.
Intravenous diazepam was thought to be ineffective from her clinical history. However with very large doses of sodium valproate (1200mg/day, 67mg/kg) administered through a nasogastric tube, we were able to control her seizures without producing unconsciousness.When the seizures were under control, the serum level of soidium valproate was 170μg/ml. It moved within a range of 270-170μg/ml between administrations (6hours). This daily dose and serum level are much higher than the values cited in the literature1).
Intravenous diazepam (Valium) is thought to be the first choice treatment for status epilepticus, but it has a few disadvantages:
1) it may produce marked sedation or unconsciousness;
2) there is some evidence that tolerance to its antiepileptic effect occurs more rapidly than to its sedative effect and;
3) it has but a weak effect on tonic seizures and at times may even worsen them.Because sodium valproate show little sedative effect, has a marked antiepileptic effect, and a convenient means of managing daily antiepileptic therapy, it should be tried on status epilepticus, especially if diazepam is ineffective. Successful treatments, similar to the one in this study, using sodium valproate on status epilepticus, have been reported by Manshire and Espir (1974) and Barnes, et al. (1976).

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case of pseudotumor cerebri developing in a 5year-old girl after ingestion of nalidixic acid for urinary tract infection is reported.
The child developed anaphylactoid purpura followed by nephrotic syndrome. She was treated with penicillin, prednisolone and cyclophosphamide. The purpura and nephrotic syndrome improved and penicillin and cyclophosphamide were discontinued.But she developed urinary tract infection while prednisolone dosage was being tapered. The infection was treated with nalidixic acid. On the 9 th day of the therapy, she developed headache and vomiting, and was found to have papilledema.Skull X-rays revealed separation of sutures. Right retrograde brachial arteriogram failed to show any spacetaking lesion. Prednisolone was discontinued, but the symptoms became worse.Prednisolone was started again in the dose of 2.5 mg every other day and nalidixic acid was discontinued.The symptoms regressed and her fundi were normal 3 months later.
So far, 9 cases, all children of pseudotumor cerebri related to administration of nalidixic acid have been reported in the world.This is the first case reported in Japan.

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A case of congenital meningioma is reported in this paper.
Macrocephalus, vomiting and right hemiparesis were noticed immediately after the brith.Under the diagnosis of congenital hydrocephalus, ventriculoatrial shunt was perfomed previously.
At 99 days of age the patient was admitted to our hospital and the big tumor was found at the left supratentorial portion by the angiography and brain scanning. At 113 days of age total removal of the tumor was performed en block, which was whiteyellow, elastic and hard, weighed 854g, and had an encapsulated yellow collection of fluid partially. Histological diagnosis was fibroblastic meningoma. Unfortunately the sudden cardiac arrest occurred during the operation, and the patient died 7 hours after the operation. At autopsy the brain weighed 540g. It was compressed but its figure was almost normal.
We discussed about congenital meningioma from the studies of literature cases.Congenital menigioma is very rare, and has some charactaristic points as follows.
1) main symptome is intracranial hypertension, 2) supratentorial convex menigioma is popular, 3) adhesion with dura mater is loose, 4) formation of cyst is seen in about 30 percent, 5) fibroblastic type is frequent microscopically.

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