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Complications following lateral retroperitoneal transpsoas lumbar fusion (LLIF) surgery include femoral nerve apraxia, bowel/bladder injury, ureteral injury, and potentially, as illustrated in this case report, Guillain-Barré syndrome. Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an autoimmune inflammatory condition that typically presents after infection, or, less frequently, post-operatively. We report a case of GBS following elective lumbar fusion through the lateral retroperitoneal transpsoas approach (LLIF). A 56-year-old patient presented with left lower extremity (LLE) weakness on post-operative day 12. EMG showed bilateral upper extremity muscle recruitment, worse distally. Following a treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), the patient gradually improved, and her condition was favorable at 6-month post-operative follow-up. CSF analysis and EMG should be part of the workup for patients presenting with lower extremity neuropathy following LLIF., (This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Study Objectives: Healthy aging and many disorders show reduced sleep-dependent memory consolidation and corresponding alterations in non-rapid eye movement sleep oscillations. Yet sleep physiology remains a relatively neglected target for improving memory. We evaluated the effects of closed-loop auditory stimulation during sleep (CLASS) on slow oscillations (SOs), sleep spindles, and their coupling, all in relation to motor procedural memory consolidation., Methods: Twenty healthy young adults had two afternoon naps: one with auditory stimulation during SO upstates and another with no stimulation. Twelve returned for a third nap with stimulation at variable times in relation to SO upstates. In all sessions, participants trained on the motor sequence task prior to napping and were tested afterward., Results: Relative to epochs with no stimulation, upstate stimuli disrupted sleep and evoked SOs, spindles, and SO-coupled spindles. Stimuli that successfully evoked oscillations were delivered closer to the peak of the SO upstate and when spindle power was lower than stimuli that failed to evoke oscillations. Across conditions, participants showed similar significant post-nap performance improvement that correlated with the density of SO-coupled spindles., Conclusions: Despite its strong effects on sleep physiology, CLASS failed to enhance motor procedural memory. Our findings suggest methods to overcome this failure, including better sound calibration to preserve sleep continuity and the use of real-time predictive algorithms to more precisely target SO upstates and to avoid disrupting endogenous SO-coupled spindles and their mnemonic function. They motivate continued development of CLASS as an intervention to manipulate sleep oscillatory dynamics and improve memory., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Objective: Social media outlets such as Instagram have recently become a popular tool for medical professionals to disseminate medical information to a large public audience. In this study, we identify the top neurosurgery influencers on Instagram and analyze trends between content type, audience interaction, and user engagement., Methods: A list of neurosurgeon Instagram profiles based on the number of followers, user engagement, and average interaction were compiled. Outcome variables such as the numbers of followers, likes, comments, hashtags, caption words, user engagement, and average user activity were collected and analyzed. The most recent 30 posts from each included profile were stratified into categories on the basis of type of content., Results: A total of 73 neurologic surgeon "influencer" Instagram profiles met our inclusion and exclusion criteria (67 male [91.8%]; 6 female [8.2%]). Of the most recent 30 posts for each influencer, clinical and professional posts represented the majority (67.4%), while lifestyle and patient posts made up 30.3% and 2.3%, respectively. In comparison to the rest of the field (n = 43), the 30 profiles with the most followers had a significantly higher average interaction (418.77 vs. 126.79; P < 0.001), number of uploads (578.87 vs. 184.58; P = 0.004), average number of likes given in the top posts (770.71 vs. 2150.40; P < 0.001), average posts per week (2.40 vs. 1.12; P = 0.041), and average posts per month (9.91 vs. 4.02.; P = 0.015)., Conclusions: Neurosurgeon influencers on Instagram post content that predominantly features educational and academic subject matter. Post content regarding the individual's personal life or extracurricular activities made up a lesser portion of content, and there were few posts categorized as patient testimonials., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The coracoclavicular joint (CCJ) is an anomalous articulation between the surfaces of the inferior clavicle and superior coracoid and its etiology is controversial. Reportedly, symptomatic patients demonstrate significant functional limitations including shoulder abduction loss and potential for brachial plexus compression and impingement. Purpose: To determine the prevalence of CCJ across age, gender and ethnicity, and to identify clinically useful morphological characteristics. Methods: 2,724 subjects with intact clavicles and scapulae from the Hamann-Todd Osteological Collection were evaluated for the presence of CCJ. Logistic regression was used to determine the effect of age, height, gender, and race on prevalence of CCJ. 354 clavicles with CCJ were measured for size and location of the CCJ facet. Results: CCJ was observed in 9% of subjects. CCJ was more prevalent in African-Americans (12%) than Caucasian-Americans (6%) ( p < 0.001) and more prevalent in females (11%) than males (8%) ( p = 0.055). Facet location along clavicle length was consistent (average 25%, range 15-35%). But, facet location along clavicle width varied (average 60%, range 10-90%), with males having a more posterior location. For every 10-year increase in age, facet elevation ( p = 0.001) and surface area ( p < 0.001) increased. Conclusions: CCJ prevalence was 9% in our large osseous population, found more commonly in African-Americans and females. Facet location is predictable with respect to clavicle length, but less so along clavicle width. The clavicular facet may develop at some point in life and continue to grow in size after its appearance. Clinical Relevance: Presence of a CCJ represents a potential overlooked source of anterior shoulder pain and supracoracoid impingement. Epidemiologic and morphological characteristics presented in our study can aid in the identification, clinical understanding, and surgical excision of a symptomatic CCJ. Level of Evidence: Level IV., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Harlow, Sasala, Talbot, Desai, Ina and Miskovsky.)

The lingual nerve is a branch of the posterior trunk of the mandibular nerve. It provides sensation and taste to the ipsilateral anterior two-thirds of the tongue. Posttraumatic neuropathy of the lingual nerve can be chronic and debilitating long after the inciting trauma. In this operative video, the authors describe a novel technique for the treatment of lingual nerve neuropathy with neuromodulation. They present a case of a 69-year-old female with posttraumatic lingual nerve neuropathy after left molar extraction. The patient reported 95% symptom improvement after the procedure. This video demonstrates the feasibility of lingual nerve neuromodulation. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/l-CKP8-8eqk., Competing Interests: Disclosures Dr. Mammis is a consultant for Nevro, Medtronic, Abbott, and Boston Scientific., (© 2020 The Authors.)

Age differences in emotional processes have been of great interest. Previous studies using the dot probe task show that older adults can be more influenced by negative emotionally valenced faces than younger adults. Subsequent work has demonstrated two distinctive ways people engage with stimuli in this task, namely orienting to and disengaging from emotional stimuli. In the present study, we examined the effects of aging as well as ability to orient to and disengage from emotional words in a dot probe task. Older and younger adults viewed word pairs (positive-neutral, negative-neutral, and neutral-neutral) on a computer screen and pressed a button to identify a probe that replaced one of the words in the pair, responding as quickly as possible. Probes replaced either the emotional or neutral word. This design tests whether effects of aging were larger for disengaging (identifying a probe that replaced a neutral word in an emotional-neutral trial), compared to orienting (identifying a probe that replaced an emotional word in an emotional-neutral trial), and whether the pattern was exaggerated for negative compared to positive stimuli. Attentional bias estimates were calculated with mean reaction times for each trial-type. Older adults showed a specific impairment in disengaging from negative words. These results could reflect challenges with cognitive control and inhibition with age, which in this study are larger for older adults in the presence of negative information.

Anterior ankle impingement (AAI) results from repetitive microtrauma leading to pain and decreased dorsiflexion due to spur formation and synovial hypertrophy. Information about the prevalence of anterior spur formation in a large population, and the individual contributions of the talus and tibia to osseous impingement, is limited. A total of 670 ankle specimens from 344 individuals (n = 111 females, n = 233 males) aged 20 to 40 years at the time of death were examined. Matching tibia and talus were opposed and any spurring causing impingement was recorded. Spur locations were measured and ratios calculated to allow for inter-specimen comparison between: (1) medial-to-lateral and anterior-to-posterior spur location versus dimensions of talar neck width, and (2) medial-to-lateral spur location to dimensions of distal anterior tibial width. Differences in spur prevalence in relation to sex, race, height and age were identified by univariant and multivariable statistical analyses. Bony impingement was observed in 21% (n = 72) of specimens, with bilateral involvement in 8% (n = 27). For ankles with AAI, spurs were seen on the talus only in 61%, on the tibia only in 14%, and on both the tibia and talus in 26%. Spurs were significantly more prevalent in males (P = 0.001) and with increasing specimen age (P = 0.002). There were no significant differences related to specimen height or race. Spurs were predominately located on the anterolateral talus (78%) and the anterolateral portion of the distal tibial margin (80%). AAI was present in 21% of young osseous specimens and was significantly more prevalent in males and with increasing specimen age. Clin. Anat. 31:1144-1150, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., (© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Recurrent seizuring is a common neurological problem in dogs and can present diagnostic difficulties for the attending clinician. Associated interictal neurological deficits strongly suggest brain disease but the frequency of structural abnormalities in patients without such deficits is unknown. In this study the prevalence of clinically significant magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) abnormalities was determined in two groups of interictally normal dogs, those younger than 6 years and those older than 6 years of age. In the former group, only 1/46 dogs (2.2%) had significant MRI abnormalities, whereas in the latter group, 8/30 (26.7%) were abnormal. None of the dogs had an identifiable metabolic cause for the seizures. These findings suggest that the diagnostic yield of advanced neuroimaging techniques in young seizuring dogs without interictal neurological deficits is low, but reaffirms their value in similar older individuals.

Case Description: A 1-month-old female alpaca was examined because of progressive clinical signs consistent with an intracranial lesion., Clinical Findings: Clinical signs included signs of depression, lethargy, tetraparesis, and neck weakness. Two large isointense intracranial masses could be seen on T1-weighted magnetic resonance images. On T2-weighted images, the masses contained concentric rings of hypointense and hyperintense material., Treatment and Outcome: 2 abscesses were removed via a craniotomy that incorporated removal of the sagittal crest and surrounding skull and transection of the sagittal sinus. The bony deficit was replaced with polypropylene mesh. The alpaca recovered within 2 weeks and was fully integrated into the herd within 1 month after surgery., Clinical Relevance: Findings indicated that surgical removal is a feasible means of successfully treating intracranial abscesses in juvenile alpacas.

Case Description: 3 immature screw-tailed dogs were evaluated because of progressive pelvic limb paraparesis., Clinical Findings: Each dog had marked ataxia and paresis of the pelvic limbs and a palpable deformity of the midthoracic portion of the vertebral column. Pain perception in the pelvic limbs was considered normal, and there was no evidence of fecal or urinary incontinence in any of the 3 dogs. Radiography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed hemivertebrae with severe dorsoventral stenosis of the vertebral canal resulting in spinal cord compression in 2 dogs and lateral compression in the other., Treatment and Outcome: Each dog underwent decompressive surgery consisting of dorsal laminectomy or hemilaminectomy and vertebral stabilization by use of combinations of Kirschner wires or threaded external fixator pins plus polymethylmethacrylate bone cement. All dogs regained strong locomotor function with minimal residual pelvic limb ataxia., Clinical Relevance: Little detailed information regarding surgical treatment of hemivertebrae in dogs is available; results of treatment in these 3 dogs suggest that spinal cord decompression and stabilization of the vertebral column can achieve a satisfactory, functional outcome.

A retrospective evaluation of 17 dogs treated surgically for idiopathic acquired laryngeal paralysis demonstrated a marked variability in outcome, with many dogs continuing to exhibit weakness and exercise tolerance. In a subsequent prospective study, 22 consecutive affected dogs were tested for neurological deficits by neurological examination, electrodiagnostic evaluation, and blood analysis to measure thyroxine and thyroid-stimulating hormone and to detect any evidence of myasthenia gravis. Clinical neurological deficits and/or electrodiagnostic abnormalities were found in each case. There was limited evidence that specific neurological deficits were associated with a poor prognosis for full recovery of exercise tolerance. None of the dogs was positive for anti-acetylcholine receptor antibodies, and only three showed evidence of thyroid dysfunction.