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An 8-month-old girl of hypomelanosis of Ito associated with hemimegalencephaly had frequent seizures beginning 44 h after birth. The seizures were secondarily generalized or unilateral initially, followed by infantile spasms at about 1.5 months of age. Frequent partial seizures appeared at 4 months of age. [123I]N-Isopropyl-p-iodoamphetamine (IMP) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was performed serially during an interictal period at 1, 3 and 7 months of age. At 1 and 3 months, IMP-SPECT showed a marked increase of IMP uptake in the pathological left hemisphere and electroencephalography (EEG) revealed left-sided dominant hypsarrhythmia. At 7 months of age, a reversal was seen, there being decreased uptake on SPECT in the pathological hemisphere and abundant high amplitude background activity mingled with epileptic discharges on EEG in the non-pathological hemisphere. These serial changes of IMP uptake on SPECT seemed to reflect either changes in epileptic activity or maturational changes in cerebral perfusion in hemimegalencephaly.

Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) was originally discovered as a peptide that increased in the rat striatum after injection of a psychostimulant drug, such as cocaine or amphetamine, and is suggested to play potential roles in drug dependence. We tested the genetic association between the CART gene and methamphetamine (METH) dependence and/or psychosis. The subjects were 203 patients with METH dependence and 239 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the CART gene, −156A>G and IVS1 + 224G>A, were examined . There were no significant differences in genotype and allele distributions of the polymorphisms between patients with METH dependence and/or psychosis and controls. Neither were significant differences in subgroups of clinical phenotypes, for example, age at first consumption of METH, latency to onset of psychotic symptoms after the first consumption of METH, prognosis of psychosis after therapy, complication of spontaneous relapse to a psychotic state, or multisubstance abuse status, observed. The present findings suggest that the CART gene may not play a pivotal role in the development of METH dependence and psychosis, at least in a Japanese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]