Newsline — Friday, December 27, 2013 9:00
New Archaeological Discovery Reveals Ancient Cranial Surgery
Deep Brain Stimulation May Help Parkinson’s Patients Drive
Thursday, December 26, 2013 13:00
According to a new study recently published in the online issue of Neurology, deep brain stimulation may benefit the driving ability of people with Parkinson’s disease. Using driving simulation in the experiment, the study involved those with deep brain stimulators, those with Parkinson’s disease who did not have stimulators and a group who did not have Parkinson’s disease, all of whom had been driving at least once a week for more than 30 minutes within the previous three years. “Up until now, we weren’t sure how deep brain stimulation would affect driving,” said study author Carsten Buhmann, MD, of University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. Evaluating driving errors, the people with Parkinson’s without stimulators performed worse than the control participants in every category except one, while the people with deep brain stimulators did not perform significantly worse than the controls in any category, even performing better in the category of slight errors. Click here to read the full article.
Identifying Signs of Chronic Brain Injury
Friday, December 20, 2013 9:00
Through a new brain-imaging technology, eight former pro football players learned this year that they have signs of the degenerative brain disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition that previously could be determined only after death. The new technology may help quantify the risks of repetitive blows to the head. While a brain autopsy remains the only way to officially diagnose CTE, this new method for identifying signs of CTE in living brains is based on a positron emission tomography (PET) scans and use of a radioactive compound that, when injected intravenously, attaches to tau proteins, the main indicator for CTE, as well as amyloid proteins. “For the first time, we can see the footprint of prior brain injury, especially the minor and repetitive injuries, and know when there is injury accruing in the brain,” says Julian Bailes, MD, FAANS. Click here to read the full article.
Improving Human Self-control Through Brain Stimulation
Thursday, December 19, 2013 13:46
Neuroscientists have successfully demonstrated a technique to enhance a form of self-control through a form of brain stimulation. Participants in the study were asked to perform a simple behavioral task that required inhibition. In each participant, researchers identified the specific location responsible for inhibition in the prefrontal region of the brain and stimluated that area with brief, imperceptible electrical charges. The method of electrical stimulation was novel in that it apparently enhanced prefrontal function, whereas other human brain stimulation studies mostly disrupt normal brain activity. In the double-blind study that appears in a recent issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, Nitin Tandon, MD, the study’s senior author and associate professor of neurosurgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School, said, “There is a circuit in the brain for inhibiting or braking responses. We believe we are the first to show that we can enhance this braking system with brain stimulation.” Click here to read the full article.
Implant Allows Brain-damaged Rats to Recover Motor Skills
Thursday, December 19, 2013 9:53
Scientists have developed a lightweight, battery-powered device that appears capable of repairing damaged pathways in the brain. The technology, produced by scientists at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and Case Western Reserve University, may help those suffering from the damage left by stroke or head injuries. The microdevice they created monitors neurons firing in the brain, with the aim to restore communication patterns that have become disrupted by injury or disease. “We’re basically trying to reproduce the process that the brain uses during development, and that it tries to accomplish after injury, but with electronic components that will artificially bridge these areas,” senior author of the study, neurobiologist Randolph J. Nudo, PhD, said. To test the prosthesis, the microdevice was implanted into rats with damaged frontal cortexes. The findings were promising: After two weeks of microdevice-delivered brain stimulation, the rats were performing approximately at pre-injury levels. Click here to read the full article.
How Concussion May Lead to Depression Years Later
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 13:04
Researchers have found that those who have experienced multiple concussions as young adults may experience depressive symptoms later, as a result of inflammation triggered by magnified immune responses in the brain. Additionally, because the depression results from inflammation, these patients may not respond to antidepressants. The findings of this animal study were recently published online in Biological Psychiatry. Said lead author Jonathan Godbout, associate professor of neuroscience at The Ohio State University: “The young adult mice that have a diffuse head injury basically recover to normal, but not everything is normal. The brain still has a more inflammatory makeup that is permissive to hyperactivation of an immune response.” Click here to read the full article.
Study: Traumatic Brain Injury Rehab Program Outcomes Differ Widely
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 10:11
The rehabilitation process for those recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be challenging, even more so given that not all rehab programs nor the outcomes they provide are the same. According to a study published in The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, researchers at Baylor Research Institute demonstrated for the first time that differences exist in the rehabilitation context. “We expected that, after accounting for differences in patient characteristics and severity of injury, patient outcomes would be similar across centers,” said Marie Dahdah, PhD, investigator at the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation. “They were not. There were significant variations, with a 25 percent to 45 percent difference between the best-performing site and the site with the lowest outcomes at discharge.” Click here to read the full article.
How Brain Cancer Cells Hide from Drugs
Tuesday, December 17, 2013 13:39
A study recently published in an online issue of Science reported the discovery of a biological mechanism that results in resistance to drugs targeted to fight glioblastoma. The drugs are designed to find and kill glioblastoma cells by targeting telltale mutations on the cell surface that accelerate tumor growth, but researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that the tumor cells are able to eliminate the gene mutation, essentially removing the target while the drug is present and allowing the tumor to become drug-resistant. However, the researchers also discovered that after the drug is removed, the tumor cells reacquire the gene mutation, or oncogene, that helps the tumor cells grow more robustly. “Now that we know that tumor cells have the surprising capacity to lose this oncogene during treatment and then reverse the process after drug removal, we may be able to exploit this phenomenon in the clinic,” first author David Nathanson said. Click here to read the full article.
Patients with Parkinson’s Can Benefit from Virtual House Calls
Tuesday, December 17, 2013 9:00
According to a new study published in Neurology: Clinical Practice, telemedicine may present an effective means to treat patients with Parkinson’s disease. “The idea that we can provide care to individuals with Parkinson’s disease regardless of where they live is both a simple and revolutionary concept,” says neurologist Ray Dorsey, senior author of the study, University of Rochester Medical Center. Using secure, web-based video conferencing software developed by California-based Vidyo, Dorsey saw more than 50 people in various stages of treatment. Patient satisfaction with the care they received via the virtual house calls exceeded 90 percent. Click here to read the full article.
Study: Higher Altitudes, Fewer Concussions
Monday, December 16, 2013 13:29
A new report, recently published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, reveals that high school athletes playing at higher altitudes suffer fewer concussions than those closer to sea-level — the first time research has linked altitude to sports-related concussion. Examining concussion statistics from multiple sports across the nation, with football being analyzed separately, the researchers found a 31-percent decrease in concussion rates among all high school sports played at altitudes of 600 feet and above, while concussion rates for high school football players at these altitudes decreased by 30 percent. While the reasons for the decreases are unclear, one possibility is that “vasogenic edema in the brain leads to increased extravascular water,” the study says. “These two adaptations would also lead to a tighter packaging of the brain with increased blood cell content surrounding the brain.” Click here to read the full article.