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Lumbar disc herniation is a frequent condition. It causes radicular pain with irradiation along a lower limb or localized to the back. Disc herniation can be lateral or medial, with different clinical features. Medial disc herniation is more frequent, characterized by immediate good outcome after surgical treatment. Lateral disc herniation shows a greater delay in improvement on pain after surgical treatment, especially in the elderly. Some factors affect the surgical outcome, such as old age, alterations of the vertebral body, ligaments, intervertebral level. Our study is in line with these data, highlighting the better outcome, immediately after the surgical treatment in patients with medial disc herniation, while results has not been immediate in patients with lateral disc herniation, Finally, there was disappearance of the pain for both groups, as demonstrated in the long-term follow-up, after the surgical treatment.

Background: Surgery of brain tumors has made excellent progresses over time. Its characteristic is to be an extremely invasive surgery, becoming a limit that neurosurgeons have tried to overcome with the discovery of more and more modern diagnostic tools. Aim: In brain tumor surgery the aim is to excise the tumor without creating superior function deficits, so try to spare the so-called eloquent areas. Since the early twentieth century, neurosurgeons like Penfield and Ojemann have paid attention to the preservation of the language areas as well as of the motor pathways during brain surgery. Methods and results: Cortical electrical stimulation and brain mapping were used with good results. The problem was for a long time the invasiveness of the surgery which however foresaw a craniotomy. A few years ago a new and revolutionary technique has established itself. The diffusion tensor Imaging (DTI) is a non-invasive method that includes the use of MRI, allowing the study of white matter and therefore of the cortico-spinal tracts. Then, DTI tractography is able to distinguish normal nerve fibers from those infiltrated by the tumor, detecting pathological features of white matter such as axonal damage, ischemia, inflammation, edema. Conclusions: The literature is rich in cases related to the use of DTI in brain tumors, the results are excellent if one thinks of the saving of functionally important brain areas. Therefore, the excision of malignant tumors such as gliomas and glioblastomas is followed by a different and better outcome and a different quality of life. DTI tractography today represents the best and safest way of preserving the superior cortical functions in brain tumor surgery. Keywords: Diffusion tensor imaging, Tractography, Brain tumors

Liver cirrhosis can cause neurological, extrapyramidal-type disorders, such as stiffness, bradykinesia, tremor, confusion, depression. Cirrhotic extrapyramidal syndrome can worsen clinically, leading to encephalopathy, which in the most severe cases leads to coma. Brain MRI is able to highlight the extrapyramidal signs, through the presence of hyperintensity areas at the basal ganglia. In addition, extrapyramidal symptoms appear already in the metabolic compensation phase. We describe the case of a 50-year-old male, suffering from new-onset extrapyramidal syndrome, secondary to alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis, diagnosed seven years before. The case is singular for some features: the late-onset of the extrapyramidal syndrome, the absence of tremor, and especially the lack of neuroimaging findings such as MRI hyperintense areas along the basal ganglia.We hypothesize a mechanism of metabolic compensation, which would be responsible for the late appearance of the extrapyramidal syndrome and the lack of signs of encephalopathy in brain MRI.The lack of tremor is less clear, because it is a constant symptom of extrapyramidal pathology, and it is unusual that it is lacking as a symptom, after so many years. Keywords: Extrapyramidal syndrome, Hepatic cirrhosis, Hepatic encephalopathy

Background: Neck-tongue syndrome is a disorder causing unilateral neck pain, accompanied by simultaneous ipsilateral numbness of the tongue. It is explicable by compression of the second cervical root in the atlantoaxial space on sharp rotation of the neck. It may be secondary, idiopathic, familial, more frequent in females, in young people and the pain lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes. Treatment is symptomatic but also prophylactic, benefit is made by physiotherapy treatment. International Headache Society (IHS) places it between “Painful lesions of the cranial nerves and other facial pain”, describing as sudden onset of pain in the occiput or upper neck associated with abnormal sensation in the same side of the tongue. Methods: A 42-year-old female, who a month after reported a whiplash injury, following a car accident, manifested the symptoms of neck-tongue syndrome. The rotational movements of the head to the right side provoked intense pain in the neck and along the right half of the tongue. The pain also appeared spontaneously, duration varied from a few seconds to few minutes, associated with burning, frequency of about two episodes per day. Radiography and cervical spine MRI showed signs of spondylosis. Results: Topiramate combined with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, improved pain both in the neck and the tongue, reducing the episodes in frequency and intensity. Conclusions: Neck-tongue syndrome is a rare disorder, which manifests with pain in the neck and pain associated with burning of half of the tongue, by unknown etiology. Secondary forms following whiplash injury have not been described, Treatment of these secondary forms concerns use of symptomatic drugs for pain, buth also anticonvulsants as prophylaxis. Keywords: Neck-tongue syndrome, Headache, Cervical whiplash