A 4-year-old boy developed Rasmussen’s syndrome and was treated with alpha interferon intraventricularly. An improvement in the epileptic and neurologic syndrome was noted for several weeks following interferon. No adverse side effects were encountered. Since hemispherectomy is the only established therapy in Rasmussen’s Syndrome, further studies are needed to establish if intraventricular alpha interferon may halt the clinical progression of the syndrome.

Patients with unilateral, right frontal lobe damage (N = 13) and matched controls (N = 20) performed a task of lexical ambiguity resolution in order to explore the contribution of right frontal regions to lexical-semantic priming. Word triplets consisting of balanced homographs were presented to participants in four conditions: concordant, discordant, neutral, and unrelated. Controls demonstrated facilitation for concordant meanings of homographs, as evidenced by their faster reaction times in the concordant relative to the unrelated (baseline) condition, as well as a lack of facilitation for the discordant meaning relative to the neutral and concordant conditions. Results in patients with right frontal lobe damage differed depending on the site of the lesion. Patients with lesions restricted to the right medial frontal lobe only showed facilitation in the neutral condition, while those with lesions encroaching upon the right dorsolateral region demonstrated facilitation of both discordant and concordant meanings relative to the baseline condition. These results support a role for the right frontal lobe in semantic priming and suggest possible specialization within the right prefrontal cortex for the processing of lexical-semantic information. (JINS, 2005, 11, 132–143.)

Multiple studies have explored the relationship between MRI-based volumetric measurements of the hippocampus and amygdala, the degree of volumetric asymmetry of these structures, and symptom manifestation. However, considerable variability exists with regard to the reported volumetric values of these structures. The present study employed meta-analytic procedures to provide a systematic analysis of the normal population parameters of hippocampal and amygdala volumetric asymmetry as well as the absolute intrahemispheric volumes of these structures in normal adults. A literature review of studies published between 1990 and 2002 resulted in a representative sample of 82 studies (N = 3,564 participants) providing volumetric information of the hippocampus and 51 studies (N = 2,000 participants) providing volumetric information of the amygdala. Results revealed that both the hippocampus and the amygdala are reliably asymmetrical structures in normal adults, with larger right hippocampal (D = 0.21, p < .001) and right amygdala (D = 0.09, p < .01) volumes. Additional analyses indicated that differences in MRI magnet field strength and slice thickness values might differentially contribute to volumetric asymmetry estimates. These results expand on previous volumetric normative studies and may be relevant to investigators studying the clinical correlates of hippocampal and amygdala volumes. (JINS, 2004, 10, 664–678.)