Newsline — Thursday, June 14, 2012 14:00
Magnets Used to Prevent Rare Spinal Anesthesia Complication
Discovery of Alzheimer’s Protein Structure Could Lead to New Treatments
Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:00
Vanderbilt University investigators say the molecular structure of a protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease – and the discovery that it binds cholesterol – could create new therapeutics for the disease, according to a report in June 1 issue of the journal Science. Charles Sanders, PhD, professor of biochemistry, and his colleagues in the Center for Structural Biology have determined the structure of part of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) – the source of amyloid-beta, which is believed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid-beta clumps together into oligomers that kill neurons, resulting in dementia and memory loss. The amyloid-beta oligomers eventually form plaques in the brain – one of the main characteristics of the disease. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Antidepressant Drug Duloxetine May Help to Relieve Pain Caused by Chemotherapy
Wednesday, June 13, 2012 13:00
The antidepressant drug duloxetine, known commercially as Cymbalta, helped relieve painful tingling sensations resulting from chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients in a new University of Michigan study – the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common side effect of certain chemotherapy drugs. The tingling feeling – usually experienced in the toes, feet, fingers and hands – can be uncomfortable for many patients. However, for 30 percent of patients, it is a painful sensation. Previous studies have not found a reliable way to treat this type of pain. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Vanderbilt to Launch Nation’s First Educational Neuroscience Doctorate
Wednesday, June 13, 2012 9:01
Vanderbilt University has initiated the first PhD program in educational neuroscience in the U.S., leading the way in research that brings the fields of education and neuroscience together. Scheduled to start this fall, the interdisciplinary program will merge Vanderbilt’s No. 1-ranked Peabody College of Education and Human Development with the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, which administers one of the nation’s largest and highest ranking neuroscience programs, to research educational issues within the context of brain science. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Scientists Show How Motor Cortex’s Effects on Movement Can Be Better Understood
Tuesday, June 12, 2012 13:00
The June 3 issue of Nature reports that a new model for understanding how nerve cells in the brain control movement may reveal the secrets of the motor cortex — a critical region that has for a long time resisted scientists’ efforts to understand it. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford University and Columbia University have demonstrated that by examining groups of motor cortex neurons instead of individual nerve cells, the motor cortex’s effects on movement can be much more easily understood. In the study, they identified rhythmic brain cell-firing patterns coordinated across populations of neurons in the motor cortex. The scientists then linked those patterns to different shoulder muscle movements. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Doctors Suggest Neck-strengthening Exercises as Means of Concussion Prevention in Girls’ Soccer
Tuesday, June 12, 2012 8:00
One way to help prevent concussions and reduce their severity in girls’ soccer is by doing regular neck-strengthening exercises, according to experts in the field. For more information, click here to view the demonstration video from NBC’s “Rock Center.”
How One Brain Injury Resulted in an Extraordinary Gift
Monday, June 11, 2012 13:00
British photographer Eadweard Muybridge was obsessive and eccentric. He also may have been what psychiatrics refer to as an acquired savant — a person with extraordinary talent who wasn’t born that way and didn’t acquire his skills later in life. Muybridge’s erratic behavior was blamed on a head injury he sustained in a serious stagecoach accident that killed one passenger and wounded others. Today, researchers believe that the crash, which gave Muybridge a permanent brain injury, may be partially responsible for bestowing upon him an artistic brilliance. Muybridge is credited with having settled the debate over how horses gallop with a series of photographs he took of a horse in midstride back in the 1880s. The images made him famous. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Mitchel Berger Takes Over as President of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons
Monday, June 11, 2012 8:00
Mitchel S. Berger, MD, FAANS, FACS, chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) has started his term as president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). Dr. Berger is a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of brain tumors and tumor-related epilepsy in both adults and children. In addition, he specializes in brain mapping techniques that are used during surgery to identify areas of motor, sensory and language function; he has used these tools to develop protocols for sparing crucial brain functions during the removal of cancerous brain tissue. The AANS is dedicated to advancing the specialty of neurological surgery to provide the highest quality of neurosurgical care to the public. All active AANS members are physicians who are certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Berger is the first neurosurgeon in UCSF’s to be named president of the association. For more information, click here to read the full release.
‘Spike Through Brain’ Simulation Yields Similarities Between Degenerative Neurological Diseases and Age-Old Accident
Friday, June 8, 2012 13:00
A UCLA neuroscientist and his team of researchers have investigated the similarities between the effects of degenerative neurological diseases — such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease — and the dramatic change in behavior that Phineas Gage experienced after having survived what is now referred to as the famous “spike through brain” accident more than 150 years ago. The American railroad construction foreman lived for 11 years after a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying most of the left frontal lobe of his brain. For more information, click here to view a video.
Sensory Experience Changes Can Rewire the Brain as it Ages
Friday, June 8, 2012 8:00
It has long been believe that much of the wiring of the brain is fixed by the time of adolescence, but a new scientific study shows that changes in sensory experience can cause massive rewiring of the brain, even as one gets older. Additionally, it was found that this rewiring involves fibers that supply the primary input to the cerebral cortex — the part of the brain responsible for sensory perception, motor control and cognition. These findings hope to open new avenues of research on brain remodeling and aging. The study, which was conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute (MPFI) and Columbia University in New York, appears in the May 24, 2012, issue of Neuron. For more information, click here to read the full release.