Newsline — Monday, June 22, 2015 9:07
Spinal Cord Stimulation for Chronic Pain Leads to Decreased Health-care Costs
Keeping Mind, Body Active May Not Protect Against Underlying Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease
Friday, June 19, 2015 15:49
New research proposes that stimulating activities known for preventing Alzheimer’s disease may not impact the underlying causes of the disease, as it is often believed. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston published a study in the journal Neurology detailing the study with 186 participants (age 74) who began with no symptoms of dementia or similar conditions. They were outfitted with sensors to measure their mental and physical activities in order to correlate activity level with eventual health status. While those with higher activity rates proved to have higher IQ and capabilities, there was no correlation between activity level and later diagnosis of cognitive decline. “This suggests that sustaining a lifetime of intellectual engagement may help preserve cognitive function into old age. In addition, our findings should not discourage people from engaging in physically and mentally stimulating activities, as they have been shown in numerous studies to generally offer many brain benefits,” said the study author. To learn more about this study, click here.
Children’s Brains with ASD React Differently to Sensory Stimuli
Friday, June 19, 2015 8:56
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a team of researchers from UCLA published a study in the journal JAMA Psychiatry and found that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are overly sensitive to sensory stimuli have brains that react differently than those with the disorder who don’t respond so severely to noises, visual stimulation and physical contact. The findings could lead to the development of potential interventions that can help the more than 50 percent of individuals with ASD who have very strong negative responses to sensory stimuli, a condition called sensory over-responsivity (SOR). “This condition is distressing and impairing for individuals on the autism spectrum, as well as for their parents, who often feel confined to their homes because it’s too difficult to take their children out shopping, to the movies or to a restaurant,” said the lead author of the study. “Our research provides new insights into the brain differences that may cause sensory over-responsivity, which helps us understand how to treat it — from simple interventions like limiting exposure to multiple sensory stimuli…
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Neuroimaging Findings Generally Nondiagnostic in Children with Sports-related Concussions
Thursday, June 18, 2015 13:00
An experimental study on the use of neuroimaging in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury revealed that a vast majority of scans failed to detect any sign of injury, needlessly exposing the patient to radiation without aiding diagnosis or treatment. Researchers from the Canada North Concussion Network in Manitoba reported in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics that in records of over 151 young patients, 78 percent of CT scan results were inconclusive even when clinicians finally diagnosed a concussion or similar trauma. This draws into question the casual use of CT scanning in developing patients, except for use in emergency settings, when deeper imaging could be critical. As the lead researcher explained, “Methodologically, this study does not tell us which patients are more likely to demonstrate traumatic abnormalities on clinical neuroimaging, including magnetic resonance imaging. This question will be addressed by a prospective clinical study that is currently underway at our institution.” To learn more about this study, click here.
Developing Delirium in the ICU Linked to Fatal Outcomes
Thursday, June 18, 2015 9:00
About one-third of patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) will develop delirium, according to a new study led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, published in the British Medical Journal. Physicians and nurses working in intensive care have long been aware that a significant percentage of their patients will develop delirium. However, this study establishes the most definitive link between delirium in the ICU and poor outcomes. The interdisciplinary research team sifted through 10,000 published reports before selecting 42 studies that met their specific criteria, weeding out any studies that included patients with head injuries, strokes or other neurological disorders, in order to obtain a more precise estimate of delirium in ICU patients. Evaluating 16,595 patients, of which 5,280 — or 32 percent — had confirmed cases of delirium as measured by established screening protocols, the team conducted a meta-analysis, which found that delirium was associated with a two-fold increase in hospital mortality, even after adjusting for severity of illness. The review also showed that among patients who develop delirium, the risk of long-term cognitive decline increases…
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Scientists Produce Strongest Evidence Yet of Schizophrenia
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 13:55
A wide-scale study may have determined a fundamental cause of schizophrenia. International researchers led by Cardiff University have published findings in the journal Neuron, detailing the genetic analysis of more than 11,000 subjects with schizophrenia versus a larger control group. The research team eventually targeted a specific gene mutation that was highly prevalent among schizophrenics. “We’re finally starting to understand what goes wrong in schizophrenia,” said the lead author. “Our study marks a significant step towards understanding the biology underpinning schizophrenia.” The findings link the possibly genetic cause of schizophrenia to similar correlations found in autistic spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. To learn more about this study, click here.
Brain’s Reaction to Certain Words Could Replace Passwords
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 9:00
According to a new study published in the journal Neurocomputing, researchers from Binghamton University say that you may not need to remember your complicated email and bank account passwords for much longer, due to the way your brain responds to certain words, which could be used as a replacement. During the study, researchers observed the brain signals of 45 volunteers as they read a list of 75 acronyms, such as FBI and DVD. They recorded the brain’s reaction to each group of letters, focusing on the part of the brain associated with reading and recognizing words. They found that the participants’ brains reacted differently to each acronym, enough that a computer system was able to identify each volunteer with 94-percent accuracy. The results of which suggest that brainwaves could be used by security systems to verify a person’s identity. A co-author of the study explained that brain biometrics are appealing because they are cancelable and cannot be stolen by malicious means the way a finger print or retina can. “If someone’s fingerprint is stolen, that…
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Growth Molecules’ Role in Long-term Memory Formation
Tuesday, June 16, 2015 14:36
Findings from a study recently published in the journal Neuron demonstrate how a pair of growth factor molecules contribute to long-term memory formation. Growth factor molecules (GFs) are critical in the building of the brain from utero into adulthood. Through previous research, it has been established that GFs are “recycled,” starting from the brain-building function and later transitioning to “engineers” of long-term memories. In the current study, the research team examined GFs in Aplysia californica, the California sea slug. Aplysia is a model organism that is quite powerful for this type of research because its neurons are 10 to 50 times larger than those of higher organisms, such as vertebrates, and it possesses a relatively small network of neurons — characteristics that readily allow for the examination of molecular signaling during memory formation. Specifically, to produce a form of “threat memory,” called sensitization in a simple reflex system of Aplysia, the researchers presented the sea slugs with a pair of mild tail-shocks delivered 45 minutes apart — the first to instill a “molecular context” in the neurons of…
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When the Color We See Isn’t the Color We Remember
Tuesday, June 16, 2015 10:16
A new study proposes that the brain has trouble remembering exact qualities of colors in memories because it only processes a few basic colors, rather than a wider spectrum, combining them at various levels to form what is perceived as tints and hues. A joint-authored paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General details several experiments conducted using complex color hues wherein the subjects were challenged to find the exact tint from memory. General archetypes of colors reigned as common choices, appearing to be generalizations by the brain. “Trying to pick out a color for touch-ups, I’d end up making a mistake,” said the lead researcher. “This is because I’d misremember my wall as more prototypically blue. It could be a green as far as Sherwin-Williams is concerned, but I remember it as blue.” To learn more about this study, click here.
High Levels of Moral Reasoning Correspond with Increased Gray Matter
Friday, June 12, 2015 9:07
A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine recently published a study in the journal PLOS ONE that showed increased gray matter in the brains of individuals with higher levels of moral reasoning. Participants of the study were administered cognitive schema and personality tests in order to determine their moral reasoning in regard to complex dilemmas, such as medical assisted suicide. Participants then underwent MRI scanning to investigate differences in gray matter volume between those who reached the post-conventional level of moral reasoning (past the age at which the brain fully matures) and were compared to those who had not reached that level yet. With regard to brain structure, the team observed increased gray matter in the prefrontal cortex in participants who reached the post-conventional level of moral reasoning compared to those who are still at a pre-conventional and conventional level. “This research adds an investigation of individual differences in moral reasoning to the expanding landscape of moral neuroscience,” said the lead author of the study. However, the author noted further research is needed to…
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