Il-Hong Son

Aseptic Meningitis in Kikuchi's Disease

The involvement of the nervous system in Kikuchis disease (KD) is rare. Although some reports of meningeal involvement in KD were described in the literature from Japan, it has rarely been reported in Korea. A 23-year-old man presented with severe headache, fever, and vomiting. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis revealed an opening pressure 300 mmH2O, WBC 283/mm3, glucose 44 mg/dl and protein 86 mg/dl. Multiple tender lymph nodes on the left anterior neck were found on the 9th day of his hospital stay. The lymph node biopsy disclosed histopathologic features typical of KD. We report a patient with KD accompanied by aseptic meningitis, emphasizing the importance of recognizing this disorder in diagnosing patients with meningitis.

Antimalarial activity of a stilbene glycoside from Pleuropterus ciliinervis

Increasing resistance — of the mosquito vectors to insecticides and of the causative parasites, especially Plasmodium falciparum, to several of the antimalarial drugs in current use — is believed to be the primary cause of the recent recrudescence in human malaria. There is, therefore, an urgent need to discover and develop new, effective and safe drugs for the treatment of this disease (Clarkson et al., 2004). As most of the antimalarial agents in wide-spread use have been derived from medicinal plants or from structures modelled on plant lead compounds, the possibility that new drugs could be based on other compounds from plants is being investigated by several research teams. Existing botanical, pharmacological and ethnopharmacological data can, if accurate, greatly help in narrowing the search (Petelot, 1952). In traditional Chinese folk medicine, hasuo — the root of Pleuropterus ciliinervis Nakai (Polygonaceae) — has been used to treat inflammation and bacterial infections for many years (Namba, 1993). Stilbenes, anthraquinones and flavonoids have been isolated from the genus Pleuropterus (Han and Cho, 1981; Tang and Eisenbrand, 1992) and these compounds have attracted much attention for their biological effects, which include antioxidant activity (Fauconneau et al., 1997) and tyrosinase inhibition (Likhitwitayawuid and Sritularak, 2001). The recent isolation, structure elucidation and in-vitro antimalarial activity of a stilbene glycoside, from an n-butanol-soluble fraction of the root of Ple. ciliinervis, are described below MATERIALS AND METHODS

P122 Acute idiopathic longitudinal myelitis with rapid improvement

Purpose: To map cortical electrical activity related to sniffing. This is a voluntary inspiratory manoeuvre of mainly two distinct muscle groups: the upper airway/facial, and cervical/thoracic respiratory muscles occupying separate ventral and dorsal loci in the motor cortical strips bilaterally. Method: Ten healthy subjects (21–26 years) were studied. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were made using a standard 10-20 system. The subjects performed self-paced sniffing manoeuvres approximately every 5–10 seconds. Rectified electromyographic (EMG) signal of the scalene muscles was used for EEG back-averaging. A right finger flexion task was used as a comparison. Grand average was calculated for each task. Results: A slowly rising negative early Bereitschaftspotential (BP) was obtained in both the sniffing and the finger flexion task. Early BP began approximately 2.2 seconds before the EMG onset and was followed by a steeper late BP and a peak motor potential (MP). The early BPs were located centrally (Cz) in both tasks. Late BPs had primarily dorsal distribution and were symmetrical in sniffing and left-lateralised in finger movements. MPs showed clear left-sided lateralisation in finger flexion task (C3), while they were bilaterally symmetrical in sniffing task, showing two local maximums, smaller at the vertex and larger at T7 and T8. Conclusion: The symmetrically distributed sniffing-related early BP is, similar to the BP in voluntary finger movements, probably reflecting activity of the dorsal and mid-line cortical generators (premotor and supplementary motor areas). MPs of these two tasks, however, differ in their distribution. Sniffing-related MPs are symmetrical with dorsal and bilateral ventral maximums, while finger-related MPs only have a single contra-lateral maximum. Such pattern probably reflects distinct representations of two groups of inspiratory muscles involved in sniffing. Sniffing-related cortical potentials might offer a means for assessing the cortical control of breathing in neurological disorders.