Medical imaging experts at Johns Hopkins have reviewed the patient records of 302 men and women who had a much-needed X-ray of the blood vessels near the spinal cord and found that the procedure, often feared for possible complications of stroke and kidney damage, is safe and effective.
Researchers report that they have found several chemical compounds, including an antidepressant, that have powerful effects against brain-destroying prion infections in mice, opening the door to potential treatments for human prion diseases.
Stroke is a leading cause of death and serious long-term disability in the U.S. and the recurrence rate after five years is approximately 33%. Increased utilization of statins for patients with stroke will produce statistically significant and clinically important reductions in their risks of future stroke, heart attack and death from cardiovascular disease.
Cornell University researchers may have solved a 100-year puzzle: How to safely open and close the blood-brain barrier.
People with high cholesterol may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the September 13, 2011, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
An enzyme that appears to play a role in controlling the brain's response to nicotine and alcohol in mice might be a promising target for a drug that simultaneously would treat nicotine addiction and alcohol abuse in people, according to a study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.
A year after hospital discharge, the majority of stroke patients are listening to doctor’s orders when it comes to taking their prescribed secondary stroke prevention medications, new data out of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center shows. However, there is room for improvement, according to investigators.
New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham pinpoints the relationship between primary brain tumors and the onset of epileptic seizures and reveals that a drug used to treat Crohn’s disease inhibits those seizures and may be able to slow a tumor’s growth. The onset of seizures is a common symptom in gliomas and often is the first sign of a brain tumor. Sen. Ted Kennedy had a seizure in May 2008, and three days later doctors confirmed that he had a malignant glioma. Kennedy died the following year.
A drug already on the market for Crohn’s disease might help slow the growth of gliomas, the brain cancer that killed Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2008.
Contrary to longstanding assumptions, new findings suggest the work intensity of physicians across several specialties is fairly equal. The study, funded by the American Academy of Neurology along with several other medical associations and published online ahead of print in the journal Medical Care, provides the groundwork for the development of a more reliable, scientific measurement of physician work intensity that may guide future national policy in patient safety, practice management and payment. The results represent the second phase of the two-phase project, and measured the work intensity associated with actual patient care of 108 neurologists, family physicians, general internists and surgeons in the southeast United States.
Animal studies indicate commonly used general anesthetics administered during critical stages of brain development can cause detrimental impairments in synapse formation and cognitive function. Insufficient evidence currently exists to support or refute whether similar effects could occur in young children. SmartTots is centralizing research efforts to determine and ensure the safe use of anesthetics and sedatives in children.
An idea with its origins in ballistic prey catching—the way toads and chameleons snatch food with their tongues—may change fundamental views of muscle movement while powering a new approach to prosthetics. After a decade of work, lead author Kiisa Nishikawa, Regents’ professor of biology at Northern Arizona University, and an international team of collaborators have published their hypothesis about spring-loaded muscles.
Specialists in Stony Brook University School of Medicine took part in a NIH-sponsored clinical trial that reveals high-risk patients without stents implanted had fewer second strokes.
A large team of international researchers have identified a new genetic cause of inherited Parkinson’s disease that they say may be related to the inability of brain cells to handle biological stress.
The discovery that low-intensity, pulsed ultrasound can be used to noninvasively stimulate intact brain circuits holds promise for engineering rapid-response medical devices.
Patients with narrowed arteries in the brain who received intensive medical treatment had fewer strokes and deaths than patients who received a brain stent in addition to medical treatment, according to the initial results from the first, nationwide stroke prevention trial to compare the two treatment options. The results of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) study called Stenting versus Aggressive Medical Management for Preventing Recurrent Stroke in Intracranial Stenosis (SAMMPRIS) are published in the online first edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
An article appearing in the Sept. 7 New England Journal of Medicine, reporting on NIH research on brain stents, says aggressive medical treatment without stenting is better for high-risk stroke patients. But experts at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who were involved in the study believe this procedure is appropriate for some patients. They say this study is a helpful start but not likely to be the final word on understanding when stenting may be appropriate, and raise concerns about several study limitations and exclusions.
People who received intensive medical treatment following a first stroke had fewer second episodes and were less likely to die than people who received brain stents in addition to medical treatment, according to a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine, to be published online Sept. 7. All patients in the study had experienced one stroke and were considered at high risk for a second one.
Patients at a high risk for a second stroke who received intensive medical treatment had fewer strokes and deaths than patients who received a brain stent in addition to the medical treatment, a large nationwide clinical trial has shown. The investigators published the results in today's online first edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, funded the trial.
Any exercise that gets the heart pumping may reduce the risk of dementia and slow the condition’s progression once it starts, reported a Mayo Clinic study published this month in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers examined the role of aerobic exercise in preserving cognitive abilities and concluded that it should not be overlooked as an important therapy against dementia.
The metabolic state of glioma stem cells, which give rise to deadly glioblastomas, is significantly different from that of the brain cancer cells to which they give birth, a factor which helps those stem cells avoid treatment and cause recurrence later.
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures may go undiagnosed for much longer in veterans compared to civilians, according to a new study published in the September 6, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This type of seizure is different from seizures related to epilepsy and is thought to have a psychological origin.
Many common signs of aging, such as shaking hands, stooped posture and walking slower, may be due to tiny blocked vessels in the brain that can’t be detected by current technology.
If you think today's political rhetoric is overheated, imagine what goes on inside a vertebrate embryo. There, two armies whose agendas are poles apart, engage in a battle with consequences much more dire than whether the economy will recover---- they are battling for whether you (or frogs or chickens) will have a forebrain.
In a paper published today in the journal Scientific Reports, a pair of researchers at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences report that inhibiting the ability of immune cells to use fatty acids as fuel measurably slows disease progression in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Although several genes have been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), it is still unknown how they cause this progressive neurodegenerative disease. In a new study, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have demonstrated that two ALS-associated genes work in tandem to support the long-term survival of motor neurons. The findings were published in the September 1 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
A task simulator with 3D and tactile feedback can provide neurosurgeons in training with valuable practice in developing essential surgical skills, suggests a study in the September issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
New research suggests brain tumor patients who take the seizure drug valproic acid on top of standard treatment may live longer than people who take other kinds of epilepsy medications to control seizures. The research is published in the August 31, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
A sideline visual test effectively detected concussions in collegiate athletes, according to a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This quick visual test, easily administered on the playing field, holds promise as a complement to other diagnostic tools for sports-related concussion.
Using a patient’s own bone marrow stem cells to treat acute stroke is feasible and safe, according to the results of a ground-breaking Phase I trial at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
The American Academy of Neurology, the leading group of neurologists dedicated to managing sports concussion, is issuing a call to all youth and high school coaches, athletes and parents to learn the signs of sports concussion and to know when a player must leave the game. The call to action is part of the Academy’s latest educational campaign, which includes new tools to reduce the estimated four million sports concussions experienced each year in the United States. Learn more at www.aan.com/concussion.
How the brain is wired to control impulsive behavior differs significantly from what psychologists have thought, new research finds.
Nerve cells that regulate everything from heart muscle to salivary glands send out projections known as axons to their targets. By way of these axonal processes, neurons control target function and receive molecular signals from targets that return to the cell body to support cell survival. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have revealed a molecular mechanism that allows a signal from the target to return to the cell body and fulfill its neuron-sustaining mission.
An international team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Mayo Clinic in Florida has found a genetic variation they say protects against Parkinson’s disease.
Language task reveals that the brains of older people are not slower but rather wiser than young brains, which allows older adults to achieve an equivalent level of performance.
A brain imaging scan identifies biochemical changes in the brains of normal people who might be at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, according to research published in the August 24, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Communication by nerve cells shown to be more diverse than believed.
Plastic surgeons say they have developed a new surgical technique for complex skull reconstruction that could improve functional and aesthetic outcomes in cases that have previously been deemed impossible or unsafe and left patients with unsightly skull deformities requiring them to wear a helmet.
A new study shows that a simple ultrasound test may help to identify people at high risk of stroke who have a condition called asymptomatic carotid stenosis, a narrowing of the carotid artery found in the neck, in which few or no symptoms are present. The research is published in the August 17, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
A successful new rehabilitation approach to treating children with cerebral palsy puts its focus on where a child lives and plays, not just improving the child’s balance, posture and movement skills.
While for years scientists have noted an association between levels of vitamin D in a person’s body and the person’s ability to resist or minimize the effects of multiple sclerosis (MS), the mechanism involved has not been established. However new research by Sylvia Christakos, Ph.D., of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (principal investigator) Sneha Joshi (first author, a UMDNJ Ph.D. student), and colleagues (including co-investigator Lawrence Steinman, MD, of Stanford University) appears to have uncovered that process.
While deep brain stimulation has gained recognition by referring physicians as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, just half of the patients they recommend are appropriate candidates to begin this relatively new therapy immediately, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York say.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found a protein normally involved in blood pressure regulation in a surprising place: tucked within the little “power plants” of cells, the mitochondria. The quantity of this protein appears to decrease with age, but treating older mice with the blood pressure medication losartan can increase protein numbers to youthful levels, decreasing both blood pressure and cellular energy usage. The researchers say these findings, published online during the week of August 15, 2011, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to new treatments for mitochondrial–specific, age-related diseases, such as diabetes, hearing loss, frailty and Parkinson’s disease.
University of Michigan team offers multi-disciplinary approach to epilepsy surgery procedure that transforms lives.
U. Iowa scientists have discovered a new role for a protein that is mutated in Usher syndrome, one of the most common forms of deaf-blindness in humans. The findings, which were published Aug. 8 in Nature Neuroscience, may help explain why this mutation causes the most severe form of the condition.
People with Parkinson’s disease who go to a neurologist for their care are more likely to live longer, less likely to be placed in a nursing home and less likely to break a hip than people who go to a primary care physician, according to a study published in the August 10, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
Do you run when you should stay? Are you afraid of all the wrong things? An enzyme deficiency might be to blame, reveals new research in mice by scientists at the University of Southern California.
An international team of scientists has identified 29 new genetic variants linked to multiple sclerosis, providing key insights into the biology of an important and very debilitating neurological disease.
Researchers studying mice are getting closer to understanding how stress affects mood and motivation for drugs. Blocking the stress cascade in brain cells may help reduce the effects of stress, which can include anxiety, depression and the pursuit of addictive drugs.
UVA Health System researchers have made a pivotal discovery in understanding the complicated process of neurogenesis, and their findings could one day help scientists devise novel therapies to promote neurogenesis in the adult brain and re-establish its function in patients suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental disorders, in which adult neurogenesis is impaired.
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