Recent investigation suggests that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is involved in the interplay between cognition and emotion. The present study described three patients who underwent removal of brain tumors just above the right dorsal ACC. These patients had residual tumor following surgery and showed anxiety disorder (AD) both before and after surgery. Visual memory or attention was abnormal before surgery in these patients, but these deficits improved following surgery, possibly due to a decrease in compression of the right dorsal ACC. These results suggest that damage to the right dorsal ACC is involved in AD and well as in deficits in visual memory or attention. Therefore, the right dorsal ACC might play a role in vision-related cognition and emotion, such as anxiety.

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Highlights Click-evoked auditory brainstem responses were obtained from adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical adults. Significantly short peak latencies associated with the auditory peripheral functions of the ASD adults was found compared with the NT adults in the horizontal electrode montage. Adults with ASD may have the abnormalities of processing more in the peripheral auditory system than in the brainstem.

We analyzed factors associated with worsened paresis at 1-month follow-up in patients with brain tumors located in the primary motor area (M1) to establish protocols for safe awake craniotomy for M1 lesions. Patients with M1 brain tumors who underwent awake surgery in our hospital ( = 61) were evaluated before, during, and immediately and 1 month after surgery for severity of paresis, tumor location, extent of resection, complications, preoperative motor strength, histology, and operative strategies (surgery stopped or continued after deterioration of motor function). Worsened paresis at 1-month follow-up was significantly associated with worsened paresis immediately after surgery and also with operative strategy. Specifically, when motor function deteriorated during awake surgery and did not recover within 5 to 10 minutes, no deterioration was observed at 1-month follow-up in cases where we stopped surgery, whereas 6 of 13 cases showed deteriorated motor function at 1-month follow-up in cases where we continued surgery. Stopping tumor resection on deterioration of motor function during awake surgery may help prevent worsened paresis at 1-month follow-up.

Functional neurological changes after surgery combined with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography can directly provide evidence of anatomical localization of brain function. Using these techniques, a patient with dysgraphia before surgery was analyzed at our hospital in 2011. The patient showed omission of kana within sentences before surgery, which improved after surgery. The brain tumor was relatively small and was located within the primary sensory area (S1) of the inferior parietal lobe (IPL). DTI tractography before surgery revealed compression of the branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) by the brain tumor. These results suggest that the left SLF within the S1 of IPL plays a role in the development of dysgraphia of kana omission within sentences.