Newsline — Friday, December 7, 2012 13:00
A Tale of Brain Tumors (Both Benign and Malignant), Love and a Dependable Neurosurgeon
Where Patients Live Contributes to Whether They Choose Elective Surgery
Friday, December 7, 2012 8:00
If you have a bad back and live in Lancaster, Pa., you are more than twice as likely to undergo elective back surgery than someone who lives in Syracuse, N.Y. A Syracusan with heart disease is half as likely to undergo balloon angioplasty to clear clogged arteries than a similar patient in Syosset, Long Island, N.Y. And a woman with breast cancer in Buffalo, N.Y., is twice as likely to undergo a mastectomy than a woman with the same diagnosis in Syracuse. These are some of the geographic variations listed in a new report that finds that where you live can play a major factor in determining whether or not you go under the knife to treat a medical condition. The Dartmouth Atlas Project looked at rates of elective, or optional, surgeries among Medicare patients between 2008 and 2010. It found wide variations in the rates of these operations from city to city and region to region. For more than 20 years, the Dartmouth Atlas Project has been documenting variations in how medical services are distributed and…
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Gaming Platform Used to Compare Memory Impairments of Epileptic Rodents, Humans
Thursday, December 6, 2012 13:00
Researchers recreated the Morris water maze (MWM) — a behavioral test used on rodents to study spatial learning and memory — using software developed to create custom video game environments as means of studying human behavior. By building a virtual reality analogue for humans, they were able to obtain a direct comparison between the results of studies on a rodent model of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), whose spatial memory performance was found to be severely impaired and patients with TLE. The simulation program developed using the “Source Engine” (ValveTM) software was used to create an environment similar to that of a submerged water platform of the Morris water maze. In this study by the neurology department at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, UCL Institute of Child Health in London, UK, one healthy volunteers and six patients with epilepsy were studied. The results were presented at the American Epilepsy Society’s 66th annual meeting. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Research Reveals How Cancerous Tumors Spread to Other Body Parts
Thursday, December 6, 2012 9:36
A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has discovered how cancer cells control the ON/OFF switch of a program used by developing embryos to effectively metastasize in vivo, breaking free and spreading to other parts of the body, where they can proliferate and grow into secondary tumors. The findings appear in the December 11 issue of the journal Cancer Cell. In 90 percent of cancer deaths, it is the spreading of cancer, known as metastasis, that ultimately kills the patient by impacting ever-more tissues and functions until the body fails. Ten years ago, a French cancer researcher named Jean Paul Thiery, PhD, hypothesized that tumor cells metastasized by exploiting a developmental process known as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition or EMT. For more information, click here to read the full release.
New Study Details How Brain Injury from Concussions Progresses
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 14:22
The lasting impact that concussions can have on the brain is on the minds of anyone involved in football, from parents of the youngest Pop Warner players to those in the professional ranks. More and more NFL players are succumbing to symptoms of memory loss, inability to concentrate and changes in personality that are being attributed to repeated blows to the head during play. But as their numbers grow, researchers are struggling to keep up with understanding the brain injuries that concussions can cause. Now, for the first time, scientists are classifying the brain injury from head trauma into four distinct stages. Most agree that repeated mild trauma to the brain in the form of concussions can result in chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or a gradual buildup of a brain protein called tau. Just as with Alzheimer’s patients, where accumulation of plaques and tau tangles can space out healthy brain tissue and cause nerve connections to wither away, damage from concussions can trigger the accumulation of tau in CTE cases — eventually forming deposits large enough to…
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Social Isolation Results in Nerve Cell Changes that May Lead to Mental Illness
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 8:00
Reduced production of myelin — a type of protective nerve fiber that is lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) — also may play a role in the development of mental illness, say researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The results of their study appear in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Myelin is an insulating material that wraps around the axon, the threadlike part of a nerve cell through which the cell sends impulses to other nerve cells. New myelin is produced by nerve cells called oligodendrocytes both during development and in adulthood to repair damage in the brain of people with diseases such as MS. The study, led by Patrizia Casaccia, MD, PhD, professor of Neuroscience, Genetics and Genomics; and Neurology at Mount Sinai, has determined that depriving mice of social contact reduced myelin production, demonstrating that the formation of new oligodendrocytes is affected by environmental changes. This research further supports earlier evidence of abnormal myelin in a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including autism, anxiety, schizophrenia…
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Greater Numbers of Neurosurgeons, Neurologists Linked to Fewer Deaths from Stroke
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 13:00
Researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., have found an association in the U.S. between a higher density of neurologists and neurosurgeons and a decreased risk of death from stroke. The findings of their study are described in the article “Association of a higher density of specialist neuroscience providers with fewer deaths from stroke in the United States population. Clinical article,” by Atman Desai, MD, and colleagues, available online, ahead of print, in the Journal of Neurosurgery. Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the U.S. Given that neurologists and neurosurgeons are specialists in the field of stroke, the researchers hypothesized that there would be an association between the density of these neuroscience providers and the number of stroke-related deaths. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Immune System Regulator Discovered to Protect Brain from Stroke Effects
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 10:34
A small molecule known to regulate white blood cells has a surprising second role in protecting brain cells from the deleterious effects of stroke, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers. The molecule, microRNA-223, affects how cells respond to the temporary loss of blood supply brought on by stroke and, thus, the cells’ likelihood of suffering permanent damage. “We set out to find a small molecule with very specific effects in the brain, one that could be the target of a future stroke treatment,” says Valina Dawson, PhD, a professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Institute for Cell Engineering. “What we found is this molecule involved in immune response, which also acts in complex ways on the brain. This opens up a suite of interesting questions about what microRNA-223 is doing and how, but it also presents a challenge to any therapeutic application.” A report on the discovery appears in the Nov. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Investigator Researches How Palladin Protein Stimulates Cancer Cells
Monday, December 3, 2012 14:26
Assistant Chemistry Professor Moriah Beck, PhD, of Wichita State University is investigating how cancer cells spread and become fatal. Her research involves the analysis of a critical protein called palladin that is produced in large amounts in highly mobile cells. The question: How does palladin stimulate cancer cells to spread? “Ultimately, we hope to translate this knowledge into new strategies for detecting and eliminating cells that are undergoing the transition to metastasis before they have the opportunity to migrate throughout the body and, eventually, cause death,” Dr. Beck says. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Combination of Meditation, Art Therapy Can Change Brain Activity, Reduce Stress
Monday, December 3, 2012 9:33
Cancer and stress go hand-in-hand, and high stress levels can lead to poorer health outcomes in cancer patients, according to the Jefferson Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine. The Center combined creative art therapy with a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program for women with breast cancer, which resulted in changes in brain activity associated with lower stress and anxiety after the eight-week program. Study results can be found in the December issue of the journal Stress and Health. Daniel Monti, MD, director of the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine and lead author on the study, and colleagues previously published on the success of Mindfulness-based Art Therapy (MBAT) at helping cancer patients lower stress levels and improve quality of life. For more information, click here to read the full release.