Phenotype details |
She presented with psychomotor retardation in infancy and regressed after age 5. Brain computed tomography scans showed bilateral low frontal white matter density. She became quadriplegic with bulbar palsy and was intellectually handicapped after a measles infection at age 7. Tube feeding was introduced because of dysphagia at age 15. Noninvasive positive pressure ventilation was required due to central hypoventilation in her early thirties. She died of neurogenic respiratory failure at 39 years. Autopsy findings revealed a markedly atrophic brain (709 g, -6.0 standard deviation), especially in the frontal lobe, cerebellum, and brainstem portions. We found demyelination, gliosis, and cystic lesions throughout the brain, and we saw Rosenthal fibers accumulating in the perivascular spaces. We also identified a variety of abnormalities in other organs such as pancreatic necrosis, completely desquamated epithelium in the lower esophagus and stomach, foreign-body giant cells in the colon submucosa, glomerular sclerosis, and multiple bladder stones. |