Polioencephalitis Polioencephalitis Polioencephalitis is a viral infection of the brain, causing inflammation within the grey matter of the brain stem. The virus has an affinity for neuronal cell bodies and has been found to affect mostly the midbrain, pons, medulla and cerebellum of most infected patients. The infection can reach up through the thalamus and hypothalamus and possibly reach the cerebral hemispheres. The infection is caused by the poliomyelitis virus which is a single-stranded, positive sense RNA virus surrounded by a non-enveloped capsid. Humans are the only known natural hosts of this virus. The disease has been eliminated from the U.S.
Anatomy of the cerebellum would go to mossy fibers that synapse with granule and Golgi neurons with the granule cells then targeting Purkinje neurons via their excitatory parallel fibers. If the inferior olive it would go via excitatory climbing fiber inputs to Purkinje neurons. These return this output back to the cerebral cortex through the ventrolateral thalamus completing the loop. The corticopontocerebellar pathway is the largest pathway associated with the cerebellum. Arising in the cerebral cortex these fibers first terminate ipsilaterally in the pontine nuclei. Then the fibers decussate and form the middle cerebellar peduncle, terminating in the cerebellar cortex as mossy fibers. This