We report a series of 11 patients who developed headaches during intracranial endovascular procedures performed for the treatment of arteriovenous malformations (10 cases) or aneurysms (1 case). Headache was precipitated either by balloon inflation (3 cases) or by embolization (8 cases), and had a very constant pattern. In all cases the pain started suddenly, reaching maximum intensity at once. Headache was focal, unilateral, ipsilateral to the occluded artery, nonthrobbing and short-lasting (usually less than 10 minutes). It was not associated with gastrointestinal, autonomic, or aura-like symptoms. Headache localization depended upon the catheterized artery, being constant for each of the major vascular territories. Yet, in all patients pain was felt in the cutaneous territory of the ophthalmic division of the trigeminal nerve. The occurrence of headache was not associated with cortical deficit nor cortical irritation (assessed both clinically and by the EEG) and therefore seems to be directly related to the stimulation of the arterial wall. This type of pain can be used as a model of pure vascular headache. Its study can contribute not only to understand the pattern of intracranial vascular innervation but also to understand or to refute the vascular components of migraine.

This paper describes the structure and contents of EC301, a standardized testing battery for the evaluation of brain-damaged adults in the area of calculation and number processing. The battery was administered to 180 normal subjects stratified by education (3 levels), age (3) and gender. EC301 is composed of a large variety of tasks dealing with basic arithmetic skills, and their linguistic, spatial, and mnesic dimensions. The three main notational systems for numbers--Arabic digits, written verbal, and spoken verbal number forms--are explored. Analysis of error rates indicated the effect of some demographic factors (principally, education; incidentally, gender) on normal performance in some tasks.

The Portuguese version of ACE-III has very good reliability and high diagnostic capacity in the context of MCI and dementia. ACE-III also holds concurrent and divergent validity.

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