Nistagmus

Amidarone (AMD) is an antiarrhythmic drug with side effects on the nervous system. Cerebellum is seldom involved: We describe the case of a 56 years old male patient with a history of 4 month of cerebellar involvement characterized by gait unsteadiness, ataxia, nistagmus and vertigo. He was on treatment with AMD because of ventricular arrythmia. The cerebellar syndrome progressively disappeared after drug withdrawal and he was symptoms-free 4 months later. Similar symptoms appeared after another one month of automedication with the same drug...

Clinical and radiological studies of seven patients with autosomic recessive malignant osteopetrosis are presented. Diagnosis was established before the age of 3 months in six cases and at 7 months in one. In all cases the presenting signs were pallor and hepatosplenomegaly with associated neurological involvement in five. All patients had normocytic normochromic anemia, leucopenia and thrombocytopenia with features of extramedullary hematopoiesis. Radiological studies revealed increase in the density of bones with "mask" appearance of facial bones and diminished size of optic foramina...

The authors studied 20 patients (12 males and 8 females) from 5--40 years of age who had acute forms of epidemic encephalitis. Progressive development was marked only in 2 patients (in one case typical parkinsonism, in the other--a hallucinatory-paranoid schizophrenoform syndrome). In the majority of the cases neurological symptoms of the acute period gradually subsided up till a full disappearance (in 8 out of 20 cases). Among the residual of symptoms of contemporary epidemic encephalitis special attention should be drawn to blepharoclonus and blepharospasm, converging both monocular nistagmus and peculiar "psychic equivalents" of parkinsonism in the form of akairia...

The significance of the effect of histamine (Hi) in CNS has been demonstrated. By way of the inhibition of imidazol-N-methyltranspherase the amount of Hi in the brain can be increased, whereas by means of decaborane or thiazolil-metoxamine it can be lowered. It has been shown that Hi sensitizes the effect of acetylcholine (ACh) in CNS and, consequently, intensifies or weakens certain pharmacological reactions associated with ACh. It has been noted, as the most important result of the decreased Hi in CNS, that certain symptoms of motion sickness (such as vomiting, nistagmus etc...

Trisomy for the short arm of chromosome number 12 was diagnosed (by a G-banding method) in a girl with multiple congenital defects. Her mother and two sisters showed a balanced translocation 46,XX,rcp(12;21)(p11;p11), so, the affected girl was the result of a maternal adjacen t-1 meiotic segregation with a karyotype 46,XX,der21,rcp(12;12)(p11;q11)mat. Another sister decreased at 3 yr of age showed similar phenotypical features and was considered also affected although no karyotype studies were performed. Both affected cases were compared with a previous one and the concordant characteristics allowed the individualization of the following syndrome: severe mental retardation, peculiar flat facies with prominent checks, epicanthic folds, broad and irregular implantation of the eyebrows, broad and flat nasal bridge with short and narrow nose, anteverted nostrils and large philtrum, broad and prominent lower lip, low set ears with folded helix, prominent anthelix and deep concha, "spade" shape fingers (sharp-pointed distal phalanges) with shortness of the fifth, bilateral genu valgum, slightly increased space between first and second toes, secral dimple, generalized hypotonia and hyporeflexia of knees and ankles, nistagmus, retarded and dysrythmic bone age, simian creases or equivalent and distal axial triradii...

Recovery patterns after unilateral labyrinthectomy were studied using a torsion pendulum to produce angular accelerations in unanaesthetized, immovilized cats. The oculomotor activity before and during angular accelerations was recorded and cuantified in 10 post-labyrinthectomized cats during 26 days of recovery both with and without environmental fixation (eyes open or covered). The integrated nistagmus obtained with rotation in each direction was used as a measure of oculomotor activity, as well as an indicator of directional preponderance...

At different experimental conditions quantitative characteristics of the slow phase of the torsional eye movements were investigated. We found the torsional drift to increase when the head tilted faster and its velocity was bigger in the dark than in the light. Asymmetry of the drift velocity was found on moving the head to and backward. It was shown that the sign of the asymmetry did not depend on rotatory movements of the cup (the suction device for eye movement registration). At the same time electric stimulation of the labyrinth changed the sign of asymmetry and without head tilting led to the torsional eye movements (nistagmus)...

Kinematic characteristics of torsional saccades and their peculiarities were investigated. The torsional saccades were found to occur simultaniously in both eyes and had the same size and duration. It was shown that the peak velocity and the duration of the saccades depend on their amplitudes. The number of the saccades decreased and their sizes increased when the head tilts were faster. In the case intervals between the saccades decreased up to 20-30 ms. The likeness of the torsional movements and rotatory nistagmus was discussed...

It is an emergency which, in case of consciousness involvement, must be considered a severe condition; therefore, intensive control of the patient must be initiated at once, including a state of consciousness, respiration, temperature, pulse, signs of tissular perfsion, arterial blood pressure and in case of shock, central venous pressure hydroelectrolytic balance. At the general and neurological examination, nistagmus, ecchymoses of the eye bulbs, mydraisis and hemorrhages in the fundus of the eye must be investigated...

A comparative study of torsional movement of the eye in passive and active tilting of the head and body of the object was carried out. Similarity of torsional movement of the eyes in passive and active movements was shown. It was found by the method of exclusion and selective stimulation of vestibular, cervikal, lumbar optokinetic reflexes, that neither the cervikal, nor lumbar reflexes elicited spontaneous torsional movements of the eyes and had no influence on them. A direct study (coinciding with rotation direction of the stimulus of head rotation) and the reverse (noncoinciding) torsional tracing of a rotating disc and tracing without head movements was investigated...