Huntington’s disease Huntington’s disease is a universally fatal neurodegenerative disorder affecting the central nervous system that results from an autosomal dominant mutation in the huntingtin gene. It is characterized by…
Epidemiology of head injury A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the function of the…
Awake craniotomy Awake craniotomy refers to surgery that is performed on the brain while the patient is in a state of awareness and that allows for cooperation with functional testing…
Introduction Stereotactic surgery is a minimally invasive surgical intervention used for the treatment of functional disorders and in the diagnosis of intracranial lesions. The anesthesiologist plays a key role in…
Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) was initially introduced in the early 1950s. An intuitively appealing procedure, the number of procedures rose steadily until 1985, when CEA was ranked the third most common…
Surgical management of brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) is one of the most challenging in neurosurgery and, despite the relative rarity of the disease, the subject of a disproportionally large fraction…
Although it is simplistic, the statement by the British neurosurgeon J. Gillingham that “in the early years anesthetists spent their time pushing the brain out of the skull while in…
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank their colleague William Young MD who was responsible for much of the original text of this chapter. Interventional neuroradiology (INR) is the discipline…
Epidemiology According to the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS) for the years 2007–2011, the incidence of primary brain and central nervous system (CNS) tumors is 21.42/100,000…
Introduced in 1982 by Aaslid and colleagues, transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography, sometimes termed a “stethoscope for brain,” has become one of the most useful methods of noninvasive examination of cerebral…
