This past Friday our class had the opportunity to spend time doing something other than neuroscience. We all hopped on a charter bus and passed out for 3 hours, waking up to the beautiful view of Loire Valley. The first part of the trip included a guided tour of the Château d’Amboise. During one of the most exciting history lessons I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to, we learned that Charles VIII, the king of France from 1483 to 1498, died “tragically” by slamming his head into the short frame of a door in his Chateau. He had three children (including one son) with his wife Anne, but all three were the victims of illness and failed to provide a successor to the King.
It turns out, when the king’s head made contact with the frame, the impact caused a subdural hematoma to result, ultimately leading to his death. Although diagnostic methods existed back in the 1400’s, I can assure you, they were not advanced. In this day and age, a subdural hematoma can be diagnosed by neuroimaging scans such as CT and MRI scans. Many students have heard of these scans and may have even used them as part of their research or been in one themselves. Do they all know how they work? I took to discovering more about the mechanism behind their functions.
Because CT scans use cross sections to determine the location of a hematoma, the amount of blood present, and the difference between an acute bleed or swelling (Diaconis, J. N.; Rao, K. C. 1980), they are preferred over MRI’s in the instance of head trauma.
MRIs on the other hand, use the body’s natural magnetic properties to create a magnetic vector when the person is placed in a strong magnetic field (the MRI machine). Because most diseases “manifest themselves by an increase in water content”, MRI scans are useful in the detection of diseases (Berger, A., 2002).
While speaking of the various kings of France, the well-spoken tour guide happened to mention the fact that one such King had given his second wife syphilis, a topic we happen to be covering at the moment in our 402 class. Neurosyphilis, our topic of discussion, is a more enhanced version of syphilis, in which the disease has spread to the central nervous system, something common when the disease goes untreated. Maybe there’s a reason some of these French kings failed to have successors: Nature teaching these kings a lesson!
References:
Berger, A. (2002). Magnetic resonance imaging. BMJ : British Medical Journal, 324(7328), 35.
Diaconis, J. N., & Rao, K. C. (1980). CT in head trauma: a review. The Journal of Computed Tomography, 4(4), 261–270.