Newsline — Monday, August 3, 2015 16:30
Inhaled Cannabis Shown Effective for Diabetic Neuropathy Pain
Body Fat Can Send Signals to Brain, Affecting Stress Response
Monday, August 3, 2015 8:27
A newly discovered process indicates that the relationship between the brain and body fat is deeper ingrained than previously thought, as the composition of body fat appears to send signals to the brain relating to stress management and metabolic rate. Researchers published findings in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, detailing the glucocorticoid receptor in fat tissue that were found to regulate energy balance and stress response in a mouse study. “It moved our understanding of stress control to include other parts of the body. Before this, everyone thought that the regulation of stress was mainly due to the brain. It’s not just in the brain,” explained the study’s lead researcher. “This study suggests that stress regulation occurs on a much larger scale, including body systems controlling metabolism, such as fat.” The research could augment current understanding of fat-to-brain pathways, possibly assisting in the development of drugs targeting the results of long-term stress. To learn more about this study, click here.
Can Migraine Increase Your Risk of Stroke?
Friday, July 31, 2015 9:32
According to a study in a recent online issue of Neurology, new research suggests older people who experience migraines may have an increased risk of stroke, but only if they are smokers. For the study, 1,292 people from the Northern Manhattan Study with an average age of 68 who reported migraine were followed for an average of 11 years to see who developed heart attacks or stroke. Of those, 187 had migraine without aura and 75 had migraine with aura. During the study, a total of 294 strokes, heart attacks and deaths occurred. The study did not find an association between migraine with or without aura and the risk of either stroke or heart attacks. However, among smokers, migraine was associated with a three-fold increased risk of stroke, whereas among smokers, migraine was not associated with a stroke risk. “Our findings may provide more evidence as to why quitting smoking is important for people who experience migraine,” said the study author. “While this investigation of migraine and vascular events in older people found that only…
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Better Clinical Management Improves Quality of Life for Neurofibromatosis Patients
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 13:00
While neurofibromatosis (NF) is still untreatable by current drug and surgical options, analysis of clinical management and scientific knowledge of the disease reports that overall quality of life and survival time can still be improved, thanks to general medical advances. Researchers published a paper in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, proposing ideal guidelines for NF treatment, based on quantitative clinical data. Input from multiple specialists is recommended in order to clarify progression of the disease and to formulate ideal treatment options without excessive patient impact. “Each NF patient is unique, and there’s no single standard clinical approach that applies to all patients, the guidelines say. Considering the natural history of NF as individualized, distinctive and unpredictable, the main clinical procedure for all NF forms is periodic medical examination throughout life, aiming for the early detection and treatment of possible complications,” explained the co-author of the study. To learn more about this study, click here.
Study: New Imaging Technique Could Make Brain Tumor Removal Safer, More Effective
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 8:59
According to a recent study in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers report that they have developed an imaging technology that could provide neurosurgeons with a color-coded map of a patient’s brain, showing which areas are and are not cancer. First developed in the early 1990s for imaging the retina, optical coherence tomography (OCT) operates on the same echolocation principle used by bats and ultrasound scanners, but it uses light rather than sound waves, yielding a higher-resolution image than does ultrasound. One unique feature of OCT is that, unlike X-ray, CT scans or PET scans, it delivers no ionizing radiation to patients. Taking into consideration that cancers tend to be relatively dense, which affects how they scatter and reflect light waves, the researchers eventually figured out that a second special property of brain cancer cells — that they lack the so-called myelin sheaths that coat healthy brain cells — had a greater effect on the OCT readings than did density. Once they had found the characteristic OCT “signature” of brain cancer, the team devised a computer…
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Scientists Find Way to Disrupt Brain Tumor Stem Cells
Monday, June 29, 2015 13:00
Scientists have realized in recent years that some cancer cells in glioblastomas and other brain tumors are more resistant to treatment than others. Those same, more defiant cells also are much better at re-establishing cancer after treatment. However, the cancer stem cells’ remarkable abilities have to be maintained, and researchers have identified a key player in that maintenance process. When the process is disrupted, they found, so is the spread of cancer. The findings of the animal study were recently published online in the journal Cell Reports. The researchers identified a protein, known as SOX2, that is active in brain tumor stem cells and in healthy stem cells in other parts of the body. They found that the tumor stem cells’ ability to make SOX2 could be turned up or down via another protein, CDC20. Increasing SOX2 by boosting levels of CDC20 also increased a tumor’s ability to grow once transplanted into mice. Eliminating CDC20, meanwhile, left tumor stem cells unable to make SOX2, reducing the tumor stem cells’ ability to form tumors. When the…
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Cell Density Remains Constant as Brain Shrinks with Age
Monday, June 29, 2015 9:23
New, ultra-high-field magnetic resonance images (MRI) of the brain provide the most detailed images to date to show that while the brain shrinks with age, brain cell density remains constant. The study of cognitively normal young and old adults, published in the journal NMR in Biomedicine, presents the first evidence that in normal aging, cell density is preserved throughout the brain, not just in specific regions. The findings also suggest that the maintenance of brain cell density may protect against cognitive impairment as the brain gradually shrinks in normal aging. The study’s images were made by a powerful 9.4-Tesla MRI, the first of its kind for human imaging and currently approved only for research. Researchers scanned the brains of 49 cognitively normal adults ranging in age from 21 to 80; all were without major medical, neurological or psychiatric disease and scored within the normal range for mental status. The 9.4 Tesla MRI measures sodium ions, which are less concentrated by several orders of magnitude than the fat and water molecules detected with standard MRI. With…
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Neuroimaging Generally Nondiagnostic in Children, Adolescents with Sports-related Concussion
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 8:49
Researchers from the Canada North Concussion Network in Manitoba examined neuroimaging studies obtained in children and adolescents with sports-related concussions and found that the images appeared normal in 78 percent of cases. Detailed findings of this study are reported, published online ahead of print, in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics. Expert opinion among physicians specializing in sports-related concussion (SRC) holds that computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance images (MRIs) are not that useful in diagnosing SRCs. Until now, however, no study had been performed to verify this opinion. The authors examined medical records and neuroimaging findings in 151 children and adolescents who had sustained SRCs during competitive sports activities. The SRCs were all diagnosed and followed up by a single neurosurgeon specializing in concussion spectrum disorders at a multidisciplinary concussion program. Thirty-six patients underwent neuroimaging. Abnormal CT and/or MRI findings were only found in eight (22%) of the 36 patients who underwent neuroimaging. Abnormal findings were found on CT scans in five patients and on MRIs in four patients. “This study provides preliminary evidence…
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Treated Hypertension Still Carries Stroke Risk
Monday, June 15, 2015 13:00
New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, recently published in the journal Stroke, shows that, although high blood pressure (HBP) medications are beneficial for treating hypertension, it is as risky to wait for the condition to develop and then treat it to a controlled level. A cohort of 26,785 black and white participants ages 45-plus from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study were followed for 6.3 years. At baseline, 12,327 participants were successfully treated hypertensives, meaning their HBP treatment had their systolic blood pressure <140 mm HG, the goal level set by the American Heart Association, and 4,090 unsuccessfully treated hypertensives. At the conclusion of the follow-up period, more than 820 participants had experienced a stroke. The harder hypertension is to control, the higher the risk for stroke, even if the treatment is successful. The lead researcher noted that the risk of stroke went up 33 percent with each blood pressure medicine required to treat blood pressure to goal. Compared to people with systolic blood pressure below 120…
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Weekly Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Provides Relief of Post-stroke Pain
Monday, June 15, 2015 9:38
Weekly sessions of non-invasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) provided sufficient long-term pain relief in 61 percent of patients with central post-stroke pain, and delivered long-term relief for patients who continued for one year, according to a study presented at the International Neuromodulation Society 12th World Congress. All patients received rTMS to their primary motor cortex once a week for at least 12 weeks. Of 18 patients in the open-label series, 11 patients achieved satisfactory-to-excellent pain relief, and pain relief was sustained in six patients who continued treatment for one year. Overall, eight patients who had severe stroke-caused dysesthesias experienced less relief than patients without severe dysesthesias, suggesting possible neural circuit damage was inhibiting response to treatment. The study participants had all been treated medically after a unilateral ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. Several weeks into their recovery, they had begun to experience severe hand or leg pain as a consequence of brain damage from the stroke. A first phase of the study assessed whether rTMS had a treatment effect on pain. In it, the research…
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