Newsline — Friday, July 17, 2015 9:00
New Technique Using Microwave Technology Eases Pain from Spinal Tumors
Opioids May Not Relieve Chronic Back Pain Sufferers with Depression, Anxiety
Thursday, July 16, 2015 13:00
New findings may indicate that typically prescribed opioids may not be effective in certain patients due to psychiatric factors, drawing into question if mental health should impact drug usage for pain. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published findings in the journal Anesthesiology, reporting dramatically lowered drug efficacy in individuals suffering from disorders such as anxiety and depression who displayed less pain relief from opioids, but also displayed higher rates of medication abuse and addiction. “It’s important for physicians to identify psychiatric disorders prior to deciding whether to prescribe opioids for chronic back pain as well as treat these conditions as part of a multimodal treatment plan,” said the study’s author. “Rather than refusing to prescribe opioids, we suggest that these conditions be treated early and preferably before lower back pain becomes chronic. For those prescribed opioids, successful treatment of underlying psychiatric disorders may improve pain relief and reduce the chance of opioid abuse in these patients.” To learn more about this study, click here.
Two Different Migraine Surgery Techniques Found Equally Effective
Thursday, July 16, 2015 9:00
According to a randomized trial published in the July issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, two migraine surgery techniques targeting a specific “trigger site” in the brain are both highly effective in reducing the frequency and severity of migraine headaches. Two migraine surgery techniques were developed by a surgeon after noticing some patients had reduced headache activity after undergoing cosmetic forehead lift procedures. The surgery targets trigger sites in the nerve branches that produce headaches, identified by preoperative evaluation. The study included 20 patients with the temporal type of migraine headaches — one of the two most common trigger sites. All had severe and frequent migraine attacks despite standard medications. The patients underwent surgery on both sides of the head, targeting the nerve implicated in temporal migraine headaches — the zygomaticotemporal branch of the trigeminal nerve. To assess the relative effectiveness of the two techniques, outcomes were compared between sides one year after surgery. In nearly 90 percent of operated sites, surgery produced at least a one-half reduction in migraine frequency, days with…
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Human Brain May Contain a Map for Social Navigation
Wednesday, July 15, 2015 13:00
According to a study recently conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center, the brain region that helps people judge whether an object is near or far, may also guide how emotionally close they feel to others and how they rank them socially. The findings, published in the journal Neuron, may offer new insight into the social deficits that often coincide with psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and depression. The study focused on evidence for the existence of a “social map” in the hippocampus. “By quantifying the response patterns of people making decisions based on social interactions, we found that the hippocampus tracks relationships, intimacy and hierarchy within a kind of ‘social map,’” said one of the study’s lead researchers. “Our data suggests a common mechanism for how the brain codes for physical space, time and for social relationships.” The results from the study show how an impaired geometric representation of social space in the hippocampus may accompany social dysfunction across psychiatric populations. Further exploration of these hypotheses could…
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Accelerated and Persistent Decline in Cognitive Ability For Years After Stroke
Wednesday, July 15, 2015 9:00
In a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the University of Michigan Health System analyzed cognitive impairment over the years after participants suffered a stroke, and then compared it to their pre-stroke rate of memory and thinking ability. “We found that stroke is associated with cognitive decline over the long-term,” said the lead author of the study. “That is, survivors had accelerated and persistent declines in memory and thinking ability during the years after stroke — even after accounting for their cognitive changes before and early after the event.” Participants had no history of cognitive impairment when they entered the large population-based study in the mid-2000s. In the six to 10 years after, 515 participants had a stroke, and researchers compared their test results with those from the other 23,057 participants who remained stroke-free. Because they had information on how stroke survivors’ memory and thinking ability changed over time before the stroke, the research team was able to separate the declines in brain function associated with aging from…
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Study Identifies Brain Abnormalities in People with Schizophrenia
Tuesday, July 14, 2015 14:06
An international collaborative study has revealed physical differences in the brains of those suffering from schizophrenia, a discovery that could impact treatment methods and classification dynamics. A scientist from Georgia State University collaborating with the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis project (ENIGMA), from the Schizophrenia Working Group has published their findings in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The study found smaller volume within several portions of the brain among those diagnosed with schizophrenia, heavily visible compared to control studies. “This is the largest structural brain meta-analysis to date in schizophrenia, and specifically, it is not a meta-analysis pulled only from the literature,” said the author of the study. “Investigators dug into their desk drawers, including unpublished data to participate in these analyses. Everyone performed the same analyses using the same statistical models, and we combined the results. We then identified brain regions that differentiated patients from controls and ranked them according to their effect sizes.” To learn more about this study, click here.
Study Demonstrates How Huntington’s Disease Proteins Spread
Monday, July 13, 2015 13:00
In a new discovery published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, identified in spinal fluid, how the characteristic mutant proteins of Huntington’s disease spread from cell to cell. The research team then created a new method to quickly and accurately track the presence and proliferation of these neuron-damaging compounds — a discovery that could potentially accelerate the development of new drugs. The cell-to-cell “seeding” property of the mutant proteins seems to be a critical part of the disease’s progression. As part of their study, the researchers introduced a new screening test that measures mutant huntingtin protein seeding in cerebrospinal fluid. This assay distinguishes symptomatic Huntington’s disease subjects — who have high seeding activity — from gene carriers not yet showing symptoms — who have lower seeding activity. Fluid samples from non-HD individuals do not exhibit this seeding property. “Determining if a treatment modifies the course of a neurodegenerative disease like Huntington’s or Alzheimer’s may take years of clinical observation,” said the study’s lead author. “This assay that reflects a pathological process can…
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Neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s Disease Lessened by Potential New Drug Class
Monday, July 13, 2015 9:00
According to a study recently published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham found a potential new class of drugs to treat Parkinson’s disease after experiments in the brains of rats showed abatement of neurodegeneration and no significant toxicities. The rat model used during the study mimicked two cardinal features of Parkinson’s disease — degeneration of dopamine neurons in the brain, and the accumulation of alpha-synuclein in surviving neurons. Patients with Parkinson’s disease have significant degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, up to 70-percent losses at even mid-stages of their disease and abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein in many of the surviving neurons (which occurs years earlier). The potential new class of drugs, kinase inhibitors, are active against the enzyme “leucine-rich repeat kinase 2” (LRRK2, pronounced “lark two”). Two clues point to LRRK2 as a possible target for therapy in Parkinson’s — the first is due to the 2 percent of Parkinson’s disease patients who have a specific mutation in LRRK2 called G2019S which increases the kinase activity of…
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Geographical Location Has Huge Impact on Stroke Treatment
Friday, July 10, 2015 13:00
A new study on the usage of cutting-edge clot-removing drugs in stroke treatment revealed that the drugs are only being utilized in particular regions of the U.S., leading to a survival rate often tied to local geography of the patient. Researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School reported in the journal Stroke that a nationwide review of the “clotbuster” drug, known as TPA, revealed that in one-fifth of the cases analyzed, the drug was not utilized in specific regions of hospitals and treatment centers. These regions were visibly reporting higher rates of stroke fatalities as well as severely worse recovery time among survivors. “These results scream that a major opportunity exists to improve emergency stroke care, if only we can understand how these differences arise and how to eliminate them,” said the lead researcher of the study. “If we had a perfect system in place nationwide, which delivered treatment at the highest rates seen in this study, thousands of patients could be spared disability.” To learn more about this study, click here.
Alzheimer’s Disease Progression Different in Patients With Down Syndrome
Friday, July 10, 2015 9:00
A study recently conducted by researchers from the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging revealed differences in the way brain inflammation — a key contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease — is expressed in different subsets of patients, particularly in people with Down syndrome. People with Down syndrome have a third copy of Chromosome 21, which is the same chromosome responsible for the production of a molecule called amyloid precursor protein. Amyloid over-production can lead to brain plaques that are a prime feature of Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, close to 100 percent of people with Down syndrome also develop Alzheimer’s disease pathology in their brain by the time they are 40-years-old. “People develop Alzheimer’s disease at different ages, but it’s typically in their 60s, 70s, or 80s,” said a lead researcher of the study. “It’s a little easier to study Alzheimer’s disease in Down syndrome because of the predictability of the age when adults with DS develop signs of the disease.” During the study, the research team found the patients with Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome…
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