Newsline — Monday, November 3, 2014 13:15
New Technology Shows Promise for Treatment of Brain Tumors
New Window of Opportunity to Prevent Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases Identified
Monday, November 3, 2014 9:20
According to a study conducted by a team of cardiologists, neuroscientists and psychiatrists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, future prevention and treatment strategies for vascular diseases may lie in the evaluation of early brain imaging tests long before heart attacks or strokes occur. During the study, Mount Sinai researchers examined all relevant brain imaging studies conducted over the last 33 years. They looked at studies that used every available brain imaging modality in patients with vascular disease risk factors, but no symptoms that would lead to a diagnosis of diseased blood vessels in the heart, brain or periphery. The results of the study showed that patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, smoking or metabolic syndrome (but had no symptoms) still had visible signs on their neuroimaging scans of structural and functional brain changes long before the development of any events related to vascular diseases of the heart or brain. To read more about this study, click here.
Reminiscing Can Help Boost Mental Performance
Friday, October 31, 2014 13:18
New research shows for the first time that engaging brain areas linked to off-task mental activities, such as daydreaming and reminiscing, can actually boost performance on some challenging mental tasks. Researchers developed a new approach in which off-task processes, such as reminiscing, can support rather than conflict with the aims of the experimental task. Their task tested whether accessing long-term memory about famous people, which typically engages default network brain regions, can support short-term memory performance, which typically engages executive control regions. While undergoing brain scanning, 36 young adults viewed sets of famous and anonymous faces in sequence and were asked to identify whether the current face matched the one presented two faces back. The team found participants were faster and more accurate when matching famous faces than when matching anonymous faces and that this better short-term memory performance was associated with greater activity in the default network. The results show that activity in the default brain regions can support performance on goal-directed tasks when task demands align with processes supported by the default network….
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New Insight on Link Between Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s Disease
Friday, October 31, 2014 9:39
In a recent study published in the journal Cell, researchers from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute revealed the process that leads to changes in the brains of individuals with Down syndrome — the same changes that cause dementia in Alzheimer’s disease patients. The findings from the study have important implications for developing treatments that can potentially prevent damage in neuronal connectivity and brain function in Down syndrome and other neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease. By the age of 40, nearly 100 percent of all individuals with Down syndrome develop the changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and approximately 25 percent of people with Down syndrome show signs of Alzheimer’s-type dementia by the age of 35, and 75 percent by the age of 65. “Our goal is to understand how the extra copy of chromosome 21 and its genes cause individuals with Down syndrome to have a greatly increased risk of developing dementia,” said the study’s senior author. “Our new study reveals how a protein called sorting nexin (SNX27) regulates the generation…
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Hidden Brain Signatures of Consciousness Found in Vegetative-state Patients
Thursday, October 30, 2014 16:20
A team of researchers led by scientists at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge have used high-density electroencephalographs (EEG) and a branch of math known as ‘graph theory’ to study networks of activity in the brains of 32 patients diagnosed as vegetative and minimally conscious in order to compare them to healthy adults. During the study, the researchers showed that the diversely connected networks that support awareness in a healthy brain are typically — but more importantly, not always — impaired in patients who are in a vegetative state. Throughout the study, some vegetative patients had well-preserved brain networks that looked similar to those of healthy adults. These patients were those who had shown signs of hidden awareness by following commands, such as imagining playing tennis. The findings could help researchers develop a relatively simple way of identifying which patients might be aware during a vegetative state. Unlike the tennis test, which can be a difficult task for patients and requires expensive and often unavailable fMRI scanners….
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Mathematical Model Shows How the Brain Remains Stable During Learning
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 14:36
Complex biochemical signals that coordinate fast and slow changes in neuronal networks keep the brain in balance during learning, according to a study recently published in Neuron. The work represents a six-year quest by a collaborative team from the three institutions to solve a question of how the brain learns and consolidates new experiences on dramatically different timescales. Neuronal networks form a learning machine that allows the brain to extract and store new information from its surroundings via the senses, and a new model devised by the research team shows how the brain’s network can learn new information while maintaining stability. By modeling Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity together, both of which control ocular dominance plasticity, researchers saw a possible resolution to the paradox of brain stability during learning. The theory and experimental findings showed that fast Hebbian and slow homeostatic plasticity work together during learning, but only after each has independently assured stability on its own timescale. To learn more about this study, click here.
Immune Proteins Regulate Brain-cell Connections
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 10:27
Researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-San Diego (UCSD), recently found that an immune-system protein called MHCI, moonlights in the nervous system to help regulate the number of synapses. The research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, reported that in the brain, MHCI could play an unexpected role in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, type II diabetes and autism. MHCI proteins are known for their role in the immune system, where they present protein fragments from pathogens and cancerous cells to T cells, which are white blood cells that play a central role in the body’s response to infection. This allows T cells to recognize and kill infected, cancerous cells. In the brain, however, the researchers found that the MHCI immune molecules are one of the only known factors that limit the density of synapses, ensuring that synapses form in the appropriate numbers necessary to support healthy brain function. MHCI limited synapse density by inhibiting insulin receptors, which regulate the body’s sugar metabolism and, in the brain, promote synapse function. To read more…
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Fairness is in the Brain
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:00
Economists from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) have worked together to assess the relationship between fairness, equality, work and money. The research team from the two institutions looked at the striatum, or the reward center of the brain to measure reactions to questions related to fairness, equality, work and money. During the study, the participants, 47 male volunteers, were asked to perform simple office work for either 30, 60 or 90 minutes. Participants were then matched in pairs so that a participant who had worked for 30 minutes was paired with someone who had worked for 90 minutes, and a participant who had worked for 60 minutes was paired with someone who had also worked for 60 minutes. They were then asked to rate the distribution of pay on a scale. The researchers then looked at how the striatum responded in relation to income distribution for amount of time the participants worked. “The brain appreciates both own reward and fairness. Both influence activation of the striatum,”…
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Study: Two Prognoses in Pilocytic Astrocytoma
Monday, October 27, 2014 16:30
Pilocytic astrocytoma (PA) is a primarily pediatric brain tumor caused mainly by mutations in the BRAF gene. In fact, there are two specific mechanisms for activation of BRAF implicated in PA formation: by fusion of the gene with nearby gene KIAA1549 (K:B fusion) or by point mutations of the BRAF gene itself. A newly designed test for K:B fusion showed that point mutations lead to a more dangerous form of the disease than does K:B fusion. The test developed for the current study used fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) to visualize BRAF and its fusion partner KIAA1549 inside cells, allowing researchers to see when these genes were fused together and when they were apart. In 64 patient samples, researchers found 37 that were K:B fusion positive and 27 that were negative. These two patient populations were markedly different. The mean age of the K:B fusion population was 7.4 years old, compared to 15.2 years old in the non-K:B population; 73 percent of the K:B PAs were found in the cerebellum, whereas 78 percent of the non-K:B…
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IGRT Commonly Used to Treat Pediatric Tumors
Monday, October 27, 2014 11:35
While image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) is a commonly used modality to ensure treatment accuracy in the management of pediatric tumors, according to a study recently published in Practical Radiation Oncology, consensus recommendations are needed in order to guide clinical decisions on the use of IGRT in treating pediatric patients. The study evaluated the use of IGRT in treatment planning for pediatric cancers in an international consortium comprised of seven institutions using either photon or proton therapy with dedicated pediatric expertise. Nine international institutions were selected to participate in the consortium and were sent a 53-item survey comprised of mixed dichotomous, rank order, constant sum and open-ended questions to evaluate patterns of IGRT use in definitive radiation therapy for patients ≤21 years old. Seven of the nine institutions completed the survey. The seven institutions treated a total of approximately 750 pediatric patients, on average, per year. Five institutions use photon therapy alone, one uses proton therapy alone and one uses both photon and proton therapy. IGRT use also varied across consortium facilities depending on tumor type….
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