Tag: brain tumor

Baby’s Rare Brain Tumor Had Teeth

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

When a 4-month-old boy’s head began to grow abnormally large, doctors were right to assume that something was seriously wrong. After a brain scan revealed a tumor, doctors underwent surgery to remove it. What they found was astonishing — multiple teeth forming inside of his brain due to a very specific type of brain tumor: craniopharyngioma.

The baby boy underwent brain surgery at the University Of Maryland Medical Center, where Drs. Narlin Beaty and Edward Ahn, physicians at University of Maryland Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, respectively, determined the boy had a craniopharyngioma, a benign brain tumor that develops near the pituitary gland. The rare brain tumor can grow to be larger than a golf ball. However, unlike other types of tumors, this one does not spread. “It’s not every day you see teeth in any type of tumor in the brain. In a craniopharyngioma, it’s unheard of,” Beaty told Live Science.

Beaty, however, said that this is not the first time that teeth have been found in a human brain, since they’ve been appeared in teratoma tumors. This was a similar case for a young woman in India. Twenty-three-year-old Nagabhushanam Siva was shocked when she found out that doctors had found two full-formed teeth in the tumor that she had, not in her brain, but in her eye. Also, in 1978, a young man named Doug Pritchard felt a sharp pain in his foot for several weeks before he decided get it checked out. Upon inspection, physicians found a tooth growing in his left foot. However, those tumors, teratomas, contain all the types of tissues found in early-human development — meaning, they have the components of a human child. In contrast, a craniopharyngioma only has one layer.

In the past, whenever scientific abnormalities were discovered, they were often unexplained and many times left untreated. “Before the modern surgical era this child would not have survived,” Beaty said. “He’s doing extremely well, all things considered, this was a big tumor right in the center of his brain.”

https://www.medicaldaily.com/doctors-find-teeth-babys-brain-tumor-plus-other-strange-places-teeth-have-been-found-270380

7 Very Bizarre (and Very Rare) Psychotic Hallucinations

On By A.P.In Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome, Anxiety, bipolar disorder, brain, Capgras delusion, Caro Lippman, Charles Bonnet syndrome, Clinical lycanthropy, Cotard's Syndrome, delusional infestations, delusional parasitosis, Dementia, Depression, Drugs, Ekbom's syndrome, epilepsy, John Todd, Jules Cotard, Medicine, mental health, mental illness, migraine, multiple sclerosis, neural activity, neurologist, Neurology, Neuropsychiatric Disease, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, Othello syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychosis, seizure, stroke, traumatic brain injury, Walking Corpse SyndromeLeave a comment

brain

The many documented cases of strange delusions and neurological syndromes can offer a window into how bizarre the brain can be.

It may seem that hallucinations are random images that appear to some individuals, or that delusions are thoughts that arise without purpose. However, in some cases, a specific brain pathway may create a particular image or delusion, and different people may experience the same hallucination.

In recent decades, with advances in brain science, researchers have started to unravel the causes of some of these conditions, while others have remained a mystery.

Here is a look at seven odd hallucinations, which show that anything is possible when the brain takes a break from reality.

1. Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome
This neurological syndrome is characterized by bizarre, distorted perceptions of time and space, similar to what Alice experienced in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

Patients with Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome describe seeing objects or parts of their bodies as smaller or bigger than their actual sizes, or in an altered shape. These individuals may also perceive time differently.

The rare syndrome seems to be caused by some viral infections, epilepsy, migraine headaches and brain tumors. Studies have also suggested that abnormal activity in parts of the visual cortex that handle information about the shape and size of objects might cause the hallucinations.

It’s also been suggested that Carroll himself experienced the condition during migraine headaches and used them as inspiration for writing the tale of Alice’s strange dream.

English psychiatrist John Todd first described the condition in an article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1955, and that’s why the condition is also called Todd’s syndrome. However, an earlier reference to the condition appears in a 1952 article by American neurologist Caro Lippman. The doctor describes a patient who reported feeling short and wide as she walked, and referenced “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to explain her body image illusions.

2. Walking Corpse Syndrome
This delusion, also called Cotard’s Syndrome, is a rare mental illness in which patients believe they are dead, are dying or have lost their internal organs.

French neurologist Jules Cotard first described the condition in 1880, finding it in a woman who had depression and also symptoms of psychosis. The patient believed she didn’t have a brain or intestines, and didn’t need to eat. She died of starvation.

Other cases of Cotard’s syndrome have been reported in people with a range of psychiatric and neurological problems, including schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury and multiple sclerosis.

In a recent case report of Cotard’s syndrome, researchers described a previously healthy 73-year-old woman who went to the emergency room insisting that she was “going to die and going to hell.” Eventually, doctors found the patient had bleeding in her brain due to a stroke. After she received treatment in the hospital, her delusion resolved within a week, according to the report published in January 2014 in the journal of Neuropsychiatry.

3. Charles Bonnet syndrome
People who have lost their sight may develop Charles Bonnet syndrome, which involves having vivid, complex visual hallucinations of things that aren’t really there.

People with this syndrome usually hallucinate people’s faces, cartoons, colored patterns and objects. It is thought the condition occurs because the brain’s visual system is no longer receiving visual information from the eye or part of the retina, and begins making up its own images.

Charles Bonnet syndrome occurs in between 10 and 40% of older adults who have significant vision loss, according to studies.

4. Clinical lycanthropy
In this extremely rare psychiatric condition, patients believe they are turning into wolves or other animals. They may perceive their own bodies differently, and insist they are growing the fur, sharp teeth and claws of a wolf.

Cases have also been reported of people with delusional beliefs about turning into dogs, pigs, frogs and snakes.

The condition usually occurs in combination with another disorder, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression, according to a review study published in the March issue of the journal History of Psychiatry in 2014.

5. Capgras delusion
Patients with Capgras delusion believe that an imposter has replaced a person they feel close to, such as a friend or spouse. The delusion has been reported in patients with schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, advanced Parkinson’s disease, dementia and brain lesions.

One brain imaging study suggested the condition may involve reduced neural activity in the brain system that processes information about faces and emotional responses.

6. Othello syndrome
Named after Shakespeare’s character, Othello syndrome involves a paranoid belief that the sufferer’s partner is cheating. People with this condition experience strong obsessive thoughts and may show aggression and violence.

In one recent case report, doctors described a 46-year-old married man in the African country Burkina Faso who had a stroke, which left him unable to communicate and paralyzed in half of his body. The patient gradually recovered from his paralysis and speaking problems, but developed a persistent delusional jealousy and aggression toward his wife, accusing her of cheating with an unidentified man.

7. Ekbom’s syndrome
Patients with Ekbom’s syndrome, also known as delusional parasitosis or delusional infestations, strongly believe they are infested with parasites that are crawling under their skin. Patients report sensations of itching and being bitten, and sometimes, in an effort to get rid of the pathogens, they may hurt themselves, which can result in wounds and actual infections.

It’s unknown what causes these delusions, but studies have linked the condition with structural changes in the brain, and some patients have improved when treated with antipsychotic medications.

http://www.livescience.com/46477-oddest-hallucinations.html

Brain tumor causes uncontrollable laughter

On By A.P.In Bolivia, brain tumor, Burgos Zuleta, hamartoma, laughter, LiveScience, Medicine, Michael Moore, neurologist, Neurology, Neuroscience, neurosurgeon, neurosurgery, seizureLeave a comment

They say laughter is the best medicine. But what if laughter is the disease?

For a 6-year-old girl in Bolivia who suffered from uncontrollable and inappropriate bouts of giggles, laughter was a symptom of a serious brain problem. But doctors initially diagnosed the child with “misbehavior.”

“She was considered spoiled, crazy — even devil-possessed,” Dr. José Liders Burgos Zuleta, ofAdvanced Medical Image Centre, in Bolivia, said in a statement.

But Burgos Zuleta discovered that the true cause of the girl’s laughing seizures, medically called gelastic seizures, was a brain tumor.

After the girl underwent a brain scan, the doctors discovered a hamartoma, a small, benign tumor that was pressing against her brain’s temporal lobe.The doctors surgically removed the tumor, and the girl is now healthy, the doctors said.

The girl stopped having the uncontrollable attacks of laughter and now only laughs normally, the doctors said.

Gelastic seizures are a form of epilepsy that is relatively rare, said Dr. Solomon Moshé, a pediatric neurologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The word comes from the Greek word for laughter, “gelos.”

“It’s not necessarily ‘hahaha’ laughing,” Moshé told Live Science. “There’s no happiness in this. Some of the kids may be very scared,” he added.

The seizures are most often caused by tumors in the hypothalamus, especially in kids, although they can also come from tumors in other parts of brain, Moshé said. Although laughter is the main symptom, patients may also have outbursts of crying.

These tumors can cause growth abnormalities if they affect the pituitary gland, he said.

The surgery to remove such brain tumors used to be difficult and dangerous, but a new surgical technique developed within the last 10 years allows doctors to remove them effectively without great risk, Moshé said.

The doctors who treated the girl said their report of her case could raise awareness of the strange condition, so doctors in Latin America can diagnose the true cause of some children’s “behavioral” problems, and refer them to a neurologist.

The case report was published June 16 in the journal ecancermedicalscience.

Thanks to Michael Moore for sharing this with the It’s Interesting community.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/girls-uncontrollable-laughter-caused-by-brain-tumor/

Arizona store employee discovers brain tumor after he’s pistol-whipped

On By A.P.In Arizona, brain tumor, Crime, Dave Alsup, Ed Payne, Human Behavior, Jerimiah Willey, pistol-whip, ViolenceLeave a comment

brain tumor

By Ed Payne and Dave Alsup

Call it a mixed blessing — one that may have saved an Arizona convenience store employee’s life.

When Phoenix Circle K manager Jerimiah Willey was pistol-whipped during a robbery last month, he landed at St. Joseph’s Hospital with a head injury that required eight staples.

“He hit me in the head twice. … and then throughout the whole thing, he was nudging me with the gun,” Willey told CNN affiliate KTVK.

The hospital did a CT scan while he was there and discovered something far worse — a massive and potentially life-threatening brain tumor.

“They said that had this not been found and soon around the time that it was found, that he probably just would have gone to sleep one night and not been able to wake up,” his wife, Alisha Willey, told the affiliate.

He is recovering from the first of what’s expected to be three brain surgeries.

“It’s our understanding, that because of the size, we believe there’s going to be two more surgeries,” his mother-in-law, Rose Gould, told CNN.

The surgery has left him partially paralyzed, with slurred speech and some loss of hearing. He’s undergoing therapy.

Although the road ahead for the Willeys and their three children is uncertain, they’re hopeful that the slow-growing tumor is benign and was caught before it was too late.

A fund has been set up to help pay for the family’s medical expenses.

“It’s hard to be thankful to somebody who was so violent,” Alisha Willey said. “I’m just very blessed that my husband is still alive and that it wasn’t over that morning.”

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/us/arizona-beating-brain-tumor/index.html