Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease presented with recurrent vestibular migraine-like attack: a case presentation

BACKGROUND: Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by dementia, tremor, episodic encephalopathy and autonomic nervous dysfunction. To date, vestibular migraine (VM)-like attack has never been reported in cases with NIID. Here, we describe an 86-year-old patient with NIID who presented with recurrent vertigo associated with headache for more than 30 years. CASE PRESENTATION: An 86-year-old Chinese woman with vertigo, headache, weakness of limbs, fever, and disturbance of consciousness was admitted to our hospital. She had suffered from recurrent vertigo associated with headache since her 50 s,followed by essential tremor and dementia. On this admission, brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed high intensity signals along the corticomedullary junction on diffusion weighted imaging (DWI). Peripheral neuropathy of the extremities was detected through electrophysiological studies. We diagnosed NIID after detecting eosinophilic intranuclear inclusions in the ductal epithelial cells of sweat glands and identifying an abnormal expansion of 81 GGC repeats in the 5’UTR of NOTCH2NLC gene. CONCLUSIONS: VM-like attack may be associated with NIID.