Medicine is as much defined by diseases as by the people who named them. Neurology particularly has a proud history of eponymous disorders which I discussed in my other neurology blog, Neurochecklists Updates, with the title 45 neurological disorders with unusual EPONYMS in neurochecklists. In many cases, it is a no brainer that Benjamin Duchenne described Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Charle’s Bell is linked to Bell’s palsy, Guido Werdnig and Johann Hoffmann have Werdnig-Hoffmann disease named after them. Similarly, Sergei Korsakoff described Korsakoff’s psychosis, Adolf Wellenberg defined Wellenberg’s syndrome, and it is Augusta Dejerine Klumpke who discerned Klumpke’s paralysis. The same applies to neurological clinical signs, with Moritz Romberg and Romberg’s sign, Henreich Rinne and Rinne’s test, Joseph Babinski and Babinski sign, and Joseph Brudzinski with Brudzinki’s sign.
Yes, it could become rather tiresome. But not when it comes to diseases which, for some reason, never had any names attached to them. Whilst we can celebrate Huntington, Alzheimer, Parkinson, and Friedreich, who defined narcolepsy and delirium tremens? This blog is therefore a chance to celebrate the lesser known history of neurology, and to inject some fairness into the name game. Here then are 25 non-eponymous neurological diseases and the people who discovered, fully described, or named them.
By A. F. Dressler – Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag Dr. Woldemar Kernig’s: Von Verehrern und Schülern herausgegeben als Festnummer der St. Petersburger medicinischen Wochenschrift St. Petersburger medizinische Wochenschrift, Bd. 35, Nr. 45. (1910), Public Domain, Link
Neurology embodies some of the most dreadful diseases known to man. Every neurological disorder is disheartening, each characterised by unique frustrations for patients and their families. It is difficult to quantify the distress and misery these afflictions impose on their victims, and even harder to appreciate the despair and anguish they evoke in those who care for them.
It is clearly hard to compare the impact of different neurological diseases. Some neurological disorders however stand out because of the consternation their names evoke, and the terror that follows in their wake. These diseases come with unimaginable physical and psychological burdens, and crushing demands on human and material resources. They impose either a debilitating morbidity, or a hasty mortality.
The nervous system ailments in the list below pose exacting therapeutic challenges, resistant as they are to all attempts at treatment or cure. This list sets out to emphasise the urgency for neuroscience to find a remedy for each of them, but it does not intend to belittle the horror of the disorders omitted from it. The choice of the number 13 is, sadly, self-evident. Here then are the top 13 most dreadful neurological disorders…all with gold links to the associations helping to defeat them.
Ataxia, in lay terms, is incoordination. This typically manifests as an unsteady gait and clumsiness. Ataxia converts all activities of daily living into burdensome chores. Whilst many types of ataxia are preventable or reversible, primary ataxias are progressive and carry a dismal outlook. In this category are Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), Friedreich’s ataxia, and Ataxia telangiectasia. You may read more about ataxia in these previous blog posts:
Brain cancers hardly need any description. They are either primary, arising from the brain cells, or metastatic, spreading to the brain from other organs. Some primary brain cancers, such as meningiomas and pituitary tumours, are, relatively, treatable. Many others are unfortunately ominously malignant. The most dreadful in this category is surely the spine-chilling glioblastoma multiforme. You may check out these previous blog posts for more on these tumuors:
Peripheralneuropathy is ubiquitous in the neurology clinic. Neuropathy may result from reversible situations such as overindulgence in alcohol, uncontrolled diabetes, or Vitamin B12 deficiency. Neuropathy is often just a minor inconvenience when it manifests with sensory symptoms such as tingling and numbness. It may however be debilitating when it presents as limb paralysis, or complicated by major skeletal deformities. At the severe end of the spectrum of neuropathy are the hereditary forms such as CharcotMarie Tooth disease (CMT) and Familialamyloid polyneuropathy. Read more in these blog posts:
CJD is the most iconic of the prion diseases. These disorders are as horrendous as they are enigmatic, defying categorisation as either infections or neurodegenerative diseases. More puzzling is their ability to be either hereditary and acquired. CJD exists in the classic or variant form, but both share a relentlessly rapid course, and a uniformly fatal end. You may read more in these previous blog posts titled:
Dystonia marks its presence by distressing movements and painful postures. At its most benign, dystonia is only a twitch of the eyelid (blepharospasm) or a flicker of one side of the face (hemifacial spasm). At the extreme end, it produces continuous twisting and swirling motions, often defying all treatments. The causes of dystonia are legion, but the primary dystonias stand out by their hereditary transmission and marked severity. Read more on dystonia in these blog posts:
Huntington’sdisease is an iconic eponymous neurological disorder which is marked by the vicious triumvirate of chorea, dementia, and a positive family history. It is an awful condition, often driving its victims to suicide. It is a so-called trinucleotide repeat expansion disorder, implying that successive generations manifest the disease at an earlier age, and in more severe forms (genetic anticipation). You may read more on HD in the previous blog post titled:
Also known as Amyotrophiclateral sclerosis (ALS), MND is simply devastating. Recognising no anatomical boundaries, it ravages the central and peripheral nervous systems equally. MND creeps up on the neurones and causes early muscle twitching (fasciculations) and cramps. It then gradually devours the nerves resulting in muscle wasting, loss of speech, ineffectual breathing, and impaired swallowing. Our previous blog posts on MND are:
Multiple sclerosis is a very common disease, and gets more common the further away you get from the equator. It is the subject of intense research because of the devastation it foists on predominantly young people. Many drugs now ameliorate, and even seem to halt the progression of, relapsing remitting MS (RRMS). This is however not the case with primary progressive MS (PPMS) which, until the introduction of ocrelizumab, defied all treatments. There are many contenders vying for the cause of MS, but the reason nerves in the central nervous system inexplicably lose their myelin sheaths remains elusive. You may read more on MS in these blog posts:
Rabies, a rhabdovirus, is a zoonosis-it is transmitted to man by a wide range of animals such as dogs, bats, racoons, and skunks. It is the quintessential deadly neurological disease, popularised by the Steven King book and film, Cujo. Rabies manifests either as the encephalitic (furious) or the paralytic (dumb) forms. It wreaks havoc by causing irritability, hydrophobia (fear of water), excessive sweating, altered consciousness, and inevitably death. Whilst there are vaccines to protect against rabies, a cure has eluded neuroscientists. This blog is yet to do justice to rabies but it is, at least, listed in the post titled What are the most iconic neurologicaldisorders? But you could better by checking neurochecklists for details of the clinicalfeatures and management of rabies.
Nothing is quite as heart-wrenching as the sudden loss of body function that results from spinal cord trauma. This often causes paralysis of both legs (paraplegia), or all four limbs (quadriplegia). This life-changing disorder is often accompanied by loss of control over bowel and bladder functions, and complications such as bed sores and painful spasms. You may read about the heroic efforts to treat spinal cord injury in the blog posts titled:
Tetanus is an eminently preventable disease, now almost wiped out in developed countries by simple immunisation. It however continues its pillage and plunder in the developing world. It strikes young and old alike, often invading the body through innocuous wounds. Tetanus is caused by tetanospasmin and tetanolysin, the deadly toxins of the bacterium Clostridium tetani. The disease is classified as generalised, localised, cephalic, or neonatal tetanus. It is characterised by painful spasms which manifest as lockjaw (trismus), facial contortions (risus sardonicus), trunkal rigidity (opisthotonus), and vocal cord spasms (laryngospasm). The disease is awfully distressing and, when advanced, untreatable. It is a stain on the world that this avoidable disorder continuous to threaten a large number of its inhabitants. Check neurochecklists for more on the pathology,clinicalfeatures, and management of tetanus.
At first, it seemed like a single drop, but it is quickly turning into a trickle. The first inkling was a study of >1,700 people with motor neurone disease (MND) which was published in the journal Neurology titled Depression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The authors found that depression is a very frequent diagnosis shortly before people are diagnosed with MND.
Surely a coincidence, I thought. A rogue finding, or even an understandable response to illness. My excuses were however debunked by another paper published soon after in the Annals of Neurology. Titled Psychiatric disorders prior to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the study found that depression may precede the diagnosis of MND by more than 5 years. The authors also report a high frequency of other psychiatric conditions preceding the diagnosis of MND, such as anxiety and psychosis.
And just off the press is this report from Nature Communications titled Genetic correlation between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and schizophrenia. What do we make of this? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Surely more studies are needed before any firm conclusions. Perhaps this may lead to some early biomarker that enables neurologists to stop the process of progression to full blown MND. Perhaps.
In the process of writing a blog post on the research findings altering neurological practice, my sight fell on the drug, Masitinib. I was completely unaware of this tyrosine kinase inhibitor, one of the promising drugs in the fight against multiple sclerosis (MS). We are likely to hear a lot more about Masitinib in MS in the coming months.
Masitinib is however not flexing its muscles just in neuro-inflammation. On the contrary, it is seeking laurels far afield, in the realm of neuro-degeneration. I was indeed pleasantly surprised to find that researchers are studying the impact of Masitinib on two other horrible scourges of neurology. The first report I came across is the favourable outcome of a phase 3 trial of Masitinib in motor neurone disease (MND) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The drug reportedly ‘reached its primary objectives‘ of efficacy and safety. In this trial, Masitinib was used as an add-on to Riluzole, the established MND drug. It’s all jolly collaborative at this stage, but who knows what threat Masitinib will pose to Riluzole in future! You may read a bit more on Masitinib and MND in this piece from Journal of Neuroinflammation.
The second report I came across is the potential of Masitinib in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This is at the phase 2 trial stage, and already showing very good outcomes in people with mild to moderate AD. Masitinib was used as an add-on drug to the conventional AD medications Memantine, Donepezil, Galantamine and Rivastigmine. These drugs can therefore rest comfortably on their thrones…at least for now! You can read a bit more on Masitinib and AD in this article from Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics.
The question however remains, why should one drug work well on such disparate diseases? I know, this feels like deja vu coming shortly after my last blog post titled Alzheimers disease and its promising links with diabetes. In that post I looked at the promise of the diabetes drug, Liraglutide, in the treatment of Alzheimers disease. I have however also reviewed this type of cross-boundary activity of drugs in my older posts, Will riluzole really be good for cerebellar ataxia? and old drugs, new roles?Perhaps Masitinib is another pointer that, as we precisely define the cause of diseases, they will turn out to be merely different manifestations of the same pathology. Food for thought.
Benjah-bmm27 assumed. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). Public Domain, Link
As I said, this wasn’t the post I set out to write. So watch out for my next blog post, the major research outcomes altering neurological practice.
Neurologists spend most of their time diagnosing benign conditions which are curable or treatable, or at least people learn to live with. Every now and then we see people with startling symptoms such as coma, convulsions, neck stiffness, or paralysis. These are obviously concerning to patients and their families who have a foreboding of diseases such as meningitis, epilepsy, and stroke. Serious as these disorders are, they at least announce themselves and show their hands. Many other neurological symptoms unfortunately give no hint of the serious diseases that follow in their trail. That is when things get a bit tricky.
What are these seemingly benign symptoms which jolt neurologists out of their blissful complacency? What are these red flag symptoms that pretend they are grey? Here are my 7 deceptively ominous neurological signs everyone should know about.
This must be the most deceptive sinister symptom in neurology. Not many people will rush to their doctors to complain about a numb chin, but it is a symptom that makes neurologists very nervous. This is because the chin gets its sensory supply from the mandibular branch of the fifth cranial nerve, also called the trigeminal nerve because it has three branches. And neurologists know that, for some bizarre reason, cancers from other parts of the body occasionally send deposits to this nerve. The numb chin syndrome is therefore not to be treated lightly.
6. Muscle twitching
OK, don’t panic yet. We have all experienced this; a flickering of an overused and tired muscle; a twitching of the odd finger; the quivering of the calf muscles in older people. Neurologists call these fasciculations, and they are only a concern if they are persistent, progressive, and widespread. And also usually only if the affected muscles are weak. In such cases neurologists worry that fasciculations are the harbingers of sinister diseases, particularly motor neurone disease (MND), better known in America as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig disease. Many people with muscle twitching will however have nothing seriously wrong with them, and many will be shooed out of the consulting room with the label of benign fasciculations syndrome (we love our syndromes, especially when they are benign). There are many other causes of fasciculations, but MND is clearly the most sinister of them all.
Neurologists often ask people with headache if their vision blurs or disappears for brief periods of time. These visual obscurations are not as dramatic as the visual loss that accompanies minor strokes or transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs). Visual obscurations affect both eyes and last only a few seconds. They are the result of sudden but brief increases in an already elevated pressure in the head. This may occur with relatively benign conditions such as idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), but it may also portend a serious disorder such as a brain tumour.
4. Sudden loss of bowel or bladder control
Loss of control down there would surely concern many people, but often not with the urgency it deserves. There are many non-neurological causes of bowel or bladder incontinence, but a sudden onset suggests that it is arising from the nervous system. The worrying diagnoses here are spinal cord compression and spinal cord inflammation (transverse myelitis). These disorders are often associated with other symptoms such as leg stiffness and weakness, but I really wouldn’t wait until these set in before I ask to see a neurologist.
3. Saddle anaesthesia
Whilst we are on the topic of things down there, a related sinister symptom is loss of sensation around the genitals and buttocks, something your doctor will prudently call saddle anaesthesia. This arises when the nerves coming off the lower end of the spinal cord, collectively called the cauda equina, are compressed. The unpalatable condition, cauda equina syndrome (CES), worries neurologists because the compression may be due to a tumour in the spinal canal.
PS: The bicycle saddle is an apt analogy, but if you prefer horseriding, below is an alternative image to soothe your hurt feelings.
A droopy eyelid is a deceptively benign symptom which worries neurologists. This symptom, which neurologist prefer to call ptosis, is particularly concerning if it is accompanied by double vision. One worrying disorder which causes ptosis is myasthenia gravis (MG), and this presents with ptosis on both sides. More sinister is ptosis which is present only on one side, particularly if it is painful. This may be caused by brain aneurysms, especially those arising from a weakness of the posterior communicating artery (PCOM) artery. As the aneurysm grows, it presses on the third cranial or oculomotor nerve, one of three nerves that controls the eyeballs and keeps the eyelids open. An aneurysm is literally a time-bomb in the brain as they wield the threat of bursting and causing a catastrophic bleeding around the brain. This makes ptosis an ominous, but also a helpful, neurological symptom.
A thunderclap headache is a symptom that means exactly what it says on the label! Neurologists will ask if the onset felt as if one was hit by a cricket bat. Even though most people have never been so assaulted, almost everyone with thunderclap headache readily agree this is what it feels like. It is such a distressing symptom that it doesn’t strike the afflicted person (pun intended) that their doctors are more concerned about investigating them, then they are in curing their headache. They patient is rushed to the CT scanner, and then subjected to a lumbar puncture. The doctors then heave a huge sigh of relief when the spinal fluid shows no blood or blood products, reassured that the patient has not suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) from a ruptured a brain aneurysm. The patient, who now has just another headache, is left to get to grips with their now, suddenly, very uninteresting symptom. There are many other causes of a thunderclap headache, but a ruptured aneurysm is the most sinister. If you develop a thunderclap headache, don’t wait to see a neurologist…just get to the nearest hospital!
PS: Don’t feel aggrieved if you are across the Pacific; it is also a thunderclap headache if it felt like being hit by a baseball bat!
Motor neurone disease (MND) is, to say the least, dreadful. It also doesn’t help that the terminology neurologists use adds to the distress. West of the Atlantic, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) means MND but goes eastwards and it is only a subtype of MND. Thankfully, for most Americans at least, there is no confusion; it is simply Lou Gehrigdisease.
MND however remains a conundrum for neurologists who are struggling to solve its puzzling riddles. MND researchers continue to toil and sweat, but their efforts are bearing fruits. Take for example the great strides that established the link between MND and the C9ORF72 gene. What are the promising prospects in the world of MND? Here are some.
Associations: Thiamine deficiency and Diabetes
By Jynto [CC0], via Wikimedia CommonsShould we be on the lookout for thiamine deficiency in patients with MND? This question is prompted by an article in the JNNP which shows an unexpectedly high frequency of laboratory, but not clinical, thiamine deficiency. Titled Thiamine deficiency in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the paper reported thiamine deficiency in about 28% of subjects with MND. The authors did not impute any causal association, and there is nothing to suggest that replenishing the thiamine improved outcomes. It is still worth thinking about because people with MND, as the paper emphasised, are at risk of thiamine deficiency.
The cause for MND remains unknown. Risk factors however abound such as smokingand other environmental risk factors. You may now add human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV K) to that list. This is according to a recent paper in Science Translational Medicine titled Human endogenous retrovirus-K contributes to motor neuron disease. The authors report that HERV K is activated in some people with MND, and it is the envelope proteins that cause damage to tissues. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) think this is an important development, and it released a press statement titled Dormant viral genes may awaken to cause ALS. Scary! Is this important, or just another risk factor? Only time will tell.
This sounds almost sacrilegious- the thought that inflammation may really play a role in MND. And at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), not the anterior horn cells. Well, some researchers are ready to commit blasphemy; publishing in Experimental Neurology, the authors showed evidence of inflammation in the muscles and NMJs of rat models of MND. They went further to show that injecting a growth factor called GDNF reduced this inflammation. Do I perceive a potential treatment pathway? Read all about it if you dare, its titled Macrophage-mediated inflammation and glial response in the skeletal muscle of a rat model of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Treatment target: TDP-43 protein
By Emw (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia CommonsWill MND ever be a curable disease? A big question, but this is the vision of all the hard-working researchers in this field. What are the prospects for a cure? One group of researchers believe the answer is in preventing misfolding of TDP-43, the protein that plays an important role in MND. They set out their case in an article published in Neurotherapeutics titled TDP-43 Proteinopathy and ALS: Insights into Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets. And don’t worry, its free access. The bold abstract says it all: “we present the case that preventing the misfolding of TDP-43 and/or enhancing its clearance represents the most important target for effectively treating ALS”. The proof of the pudding….
Making the diagnosis of MND is not always (make that is hardly ever) straightforward. In the early stages, symptoms are vague, and clinical signs are non-specific. MND also has many mimics. One of such mimics is multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). To distinguish this and other mimics from MND, neurologist rely on a test called nerve conduction study (NCS). Even this however is not always helpful.
Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is not a test neurologist rely upon to make the diagnosis of MND. Not anymore it seems, going by an article in American Journal of Neuroradiology. The paper is titled A Potential Biomarker in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. In the article, the authors assessed the amount of iron deposition in the brains of people with MND using the MRI techniques called SWI and DTI. Their findings suggest that the amount of iron in the motor cortex and motor tracts of the brain is a good guide to the presence of MND. If confirmed, this technique will help to reduce the long time it often takes before neurologists confirm their suspicions of MND to patients and their families.
The outcome of MND, poor as it often is, varies quite widely. This is influenced by several factors such as the type of MND, use of the medicine riluzole, and multidisciplinary care. New research suggests that neurofilament light chain (NfL) may be a more sensitive marker of prognosis. This is reported in an article published in Neurology titled Neurofilament light chain: A prognostic biomarker in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The authors demonstrated that patients with MND have much higher levels of NfL than those without the disease. Furthermore, subjects with MND who had the highest levels at the onset had a higher mortality hazard ratio. I think I know what that means.
Prognostic scale: ALS-MITOS predictive system
A paper in the JNNP has proposed a new predictive system for MND called ALS-MITOS, reportedly better than the more familiar ALSFRS-R. The report is titled The MITOS system predicts long-term survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Most practicing neurologists wouldn’t know the difference because they don’t to use such predictive systems. But MND researchers would be licking their lips at the prospect of a better measure of disease progression; it will make it much easier for them to show that their interventions really do work!
There are >100 mutations in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD-1), a gene known to cause MND. SOD-1 is an enzyme that binds both copper and zinc, and when defective it results in mutant copper (don’t worry, I’m just finding this out myself). Acting on this hypothesis, researchers came up with a crafty way of delivering normal copper into the central nervous system of mice modelled with SOD-1 MND. Publishing in Neurobiology of Disease, the authors showed how they achieved this with CuATSM, a chemical that contains copper and currently used for PET scans. CuATSM is readily transported into the nervous system, delivering its copper as it does so.
Every recalcitrant disease is today threatened with gene therapy. Considering it has a long list of genetic risk factors, why should MND be any different? Research taking steps in this direction is therefore long overdue. One such step was published in Gene Therapy and is titled Healthy and diseased corticospinal motor neurons are selectively transduced upon direct AAV2-2 injection into the motor cortex.The authors report that they successfully transduced motor nerves of mice models of MND. In doing so they have set the stage for gene therapy in MND. I don’t claim to understand it all, but it sounds very much like they have set the ball rolling. Promising.
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