Newsline — Monday, July 7, 2014 9:31
Heparin Derivative Suppresses Neuroblastoma Tumor Growth
Advancing Care for Patients with Brain Metastases
Thursday, July 3, 2014 13:00
In a recent article published in the July issue of Neurosurgery, led by an NYU Langone Medical Center neurosurgeon, found that many key clinical trials in the past were designed with out-of-date assumption and the tendency of some physicians to “lump together” brain metastases of diverse kinds of cancer, often resulting in less than optimal care for patients. The authors of the study, who say that medical insurers help to perpetuate the myths by denying coverage that deviates from them, have identified five leading misconceptions that often lead to poorer care. The five myths state: all tumor-cell types act the same way once they spread to the brain; the number of brain metastases is the best indicator for guiding management of the disease; all cancers detectable in the brain already reflect the presence of micrometastases; whole-brain radiation is generally unjustified; most brain metastases cause obvious symptoms. To read more about this study, click here.
Exposure to TV Violence Related to Irregular Brain Structures
Thursday, July 3, 2014 9:00
According to a recent study published in the journal Brain and Cognition, young adult men who watched more violence on television showed indications of less mature brain development and poorer executive functioning. The researchers used psychological testing and MRI scans to measure mental abilities and volume of brain regions in 65 healthy males with normal IQ between the ages of 18 and 29, specifically chosen because they were not frequent game players. Results of the study shows that the more violent TV viewing a participant reported, the worse they performed on tasks of attention and cognitive control. However, the overall amount of TV watched was not related to performance on any executive function tests. When scientists looked at the brain scans of young men with higher violent TV exposure, less volume of white matter connecting the frontal and parietal loves was seen, which can be a sign of less maturity in brain development. To read more about this study, click here.
Study Finds Cognitive Performance Can be Improved in Teens Years After TBI
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 13:00
New research published by the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas in the journal Frontiers in Neurology, shows cognitive performance can be improved after an injury to significant degrees for months — and even years— given targeted brain training. Twenty adolescents, ages 12-20, who experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI) at least six months prior to participating in the research and were demonstrating gist reasoning deficits, or the inability to “get the essence” from dense information, were enrolled in the study. The participants were randomized into two different cognitive training groups — strategy-based gist reasoning training versus fact-based memory training—who completed eight, 45-minute sessions over a one-month period. After training, only the gist-reasoning group showed significant improvement in the ability to grasp abstract meanings. Additionally, the gist-reasoning-trained group showed significant generalized gains to untrained areas of the brain including executive functions of working memory. The findings from the study advances best practices by implicating changes to common treatment schedules for TBI and concussions. To read more about this study, click here.
Assessing Type of TBI in Military Personnel
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 9:00
Explosions are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A new study, which recently appeared in JAMA Neurology, shows that military personnel with mild brain trauma related to such blasts had outcomes similar to those with mild brain injury from other causes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. However, nearly 80 percent of patients in both categories of brain trauma suffered moderate to severe overall disability within a year after injury. About 20 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to have experienced a head injury during deployment. Of those injuries, about 83 percent are considered mild forms of TBI or concussion. The researchers examined 255 U.S. military personnel who were injured while on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. To assess long-term outcomes, the investigators were able to evaluate 178 patients six to 12 months later. Of these, 53 had mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) involving an explosion and 29 had mTBI unrelated to a blast….
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Study: How Gliomas Move, Damage Tissue
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 13:00
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have discovered how gliomas migrate in the brain and cause tumors. The findings, recently published online in Nature Communications, show that gliomas disrupt normal neural connections and hijack control of blood vessels. The study provides insight into the mechanisms of how glioma cells spread throughout the brain and potentially offers an opportunity for therapy. The researchers discovered that, as they move, gliomas dislodge astrocytic endfeet. “Glioma cells traveling along blood vessels literally cut the connection of astrocytic endfeet with the vessels and push them out of the way,” said neuroscientist Harald Sontheimer, PhD. “By disrupting this important neural connection, adverse cognitive effects could be expected. Additionally, our study showed that gliomas then take control of the blood vessels for their own ends. And those ends are primarily to obtain nutrients from blood so that they can continue to grow and spread.” To learn more about the study, click here.
The Brain’s Balancing Act: Exciting and Inhibiting Neurons
Monday, June 30, 2014 16:11
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered how neurons equalize between excitation and inhibition. Specifically, the scientists have shown that there is a constant ratio (E/I ratio) between the total amount of pro-firing stimulation that a neuron receives from the hundreds or thousands of excitatory neurons that feed into it, and the total amount of red-light stop signaling that it receives from the equally numerous inhibitory neurons. This study, recently described online in Nature, shows that the E/I ratio is constant across multiple neurons in the cortex of mice and likely also humans. In experiments, the scientists also showed how the brain maintains a constant E/I ratio across neurons: The adjustment is carried out by the inhibitory neurons through the appropriate strengthening or weakening of inhibitory synapses. In terms of clinical applications, the scientists said that neurological diseases, such as autism, epilepsy and schizophrenia, are believed to be a problem, at least in part, of the brain’s ability to maintain an optimal E/I ratio. Scientists have also proposed that…
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Highly Sensitive or Empathetic? It Could be in Your Genes
Friday, June 27, 2014 13:00
In a recent study published in Brain and Behavior, researchers found that the human brain provides physical evidence that the “highly sensitive” brain responds powerfully to emotional images. Previous research suggests that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is an innate trait associated with greater sensitivity, or responsiveness, to environmental and social stimuli. The trait is becoming increasingly associated with identifiable behaviors, genes, physiological reactions and patterns or brain activity. Highly sensitive people (HSP) tend to show heightened awareness to subtle stimuli, process information more thoroughly, and are more reactive to both positive and negative stimuli. The brains of 18 married individuals were scanned (some with high and some with low SPS) as they viewed photos of either smiling faces or sad faces, with one set of photos including faces of strangers, and another with photos of their significant other. The results of the study showed areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion — particularly in those areas connected with empathetic feelings — with substantially greater blood flow to the relevant brain areas in the highly…
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Study Examines How Brain Reboots After Anesthesia
Friday, June 27, 2014 9:00
A recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides important clues about the processes used by structurally normal brains to navigate from unconsciousness, back to consciousness, after surgical anesthesia. During the study, the research team recorded the electrical activity from several brain areas associated with arousal and consciousness in a rodent model that had been given the anesthetic isoflurane. They then slowly decreased the amount of anesthesia, similar to what is done with patients in an operating room, monitoring how the electrical activity in the brain changed, looking for common activity patterns. The researchers found that recovery from anesthesia is not simply the result of the anesthetic wearing off, but also the brain finding its way back through a maze of possible activity states that allow conscious experience. The study suggests a new way to think about the human brain under anesthesia, encouraging physicians to reexamine how they approach monitoring anesthesia in the operating room. To read more about this study, click here.
Researchers Discover New Genes That Promote Brain Cancer
Thursday, June 26, 2014 14:35
A new collaborative study has identified two oncogenes, called GFI1 and GFI1B, that drive the development of medulloblastoma. The findings, recently published in Nature, suggest that GFI1 and GFI1B are worthy gene candidates for molecular-targeted therapy. “Using state-of-the-art technologies to survey the genomes of tumors derived from medulloblastoma patients, we have identified new oncogenes that drive the growth of a considerable proportion of Group 3 and 4 medulloblastomas,” said Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD, co-senior author of the paper. The study also revealed how the oncogenes become activated in medulloblastoma by “hijacking” unrelated DNA elements called “enhancers” — short regions of DNA that activate genes. To learn more about the study, click here.