Feature Channels: Neuro

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New guidelines developed by the American Academy of Neurology and the American Epilepsy Society show it's relatively safe for women with epilepsy to become pregnant, but caution must be taken, including avoiding one particular epilepsy drug that can cause birth defects. The guidelines are published in the April 27, 2009, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, and will be presented April 27, 2009, at the Academy's Annual Meeting in Seattle.

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The Sixth Annual National Neurosurgery Awareness Week (NNAW) kicks off this year on May 3 during the 77th Annual Meeting of the AANS in San Diego. Neurosurgeons treat children and adults for sports-related traumatic brain and spine injuries all too often. By using your head and wearing an approved, properly-fitting helmet for all wheeled sports and powered recreational vehicles "“ 100 percent of the time "“ you can help prevent potentially tragic or fatal injuries.

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Scientists have studied high-frequency brain waves, known as gamma oscillations, for more than 50 years, believing them crucial to consciousness, attention, learning and memory. Now, for the first time, MIT researchers and colleagues have found a way to induce these waves by shining laser light directly onto the brains of mice.

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Researchers have uncovered a mechanism involved in ensuring that only certain genes are expressed in a specific cell type. This discovery advances the understanding of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

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Children who are firstborn or breech or whose mothers are 35 or older when giving birth are at significantly greater risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder, University of Utah School of Medicine researchers have reported in a new study with Utah children.

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Three recent papers highlight new promise, and expose nagging pitfalls, of one of the Alzheimer field's most widely used surrogate measures of disease progression. Developing validated biomarkers is critical for developing better diagnostics and treatments.

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The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) has redesigned its public website, TheBrainMatters.org, to provide a comprehensive resource for neurology patients and their families. The site is available for Academy members to refer patients, caregivers, health care organizations, and the public for the latest information and resources on specific neurologic disorders.

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Every brain has a soundtrack -- probably many. Can we make them work for us?

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Sometimes less is more: Lower doses of an Alzheimer's drug delivered via skin patches improve cognition with fewer serious side effects than higher doses, according to an updated review.

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A discovery made by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine while studying mice may help explain how some people without a genetic predisposition to epilepsy can develop the disorder.

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Taking a new approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease, a research team led by investigators at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida has shown that druglike compounds can speed up destruction of the amyloid beta (A-beta) proteins that form plaque in the brains of patients with the disorder.

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UCLA researchers found that years of exposure to a combination of pesticides increased the risk of Parkinson's by 75 percent. Further, for people diagnosed with early on-set Parkinson's, earlier exposure had increased their risk for the disease by as much as four- to six-fold.

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A group of 12 proteins associated with pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) have been discovered for the first time by a team of neurology and pathology researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center. Led by Lauren Krupp, M.D., Director of the National Pediatric MS Center at SBUMC, the finding could lead to a new panel of diagnostic and prognostic markers in pediatric MS.

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New research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies casts the role of a neuronal growth factor receptor"”long suspected to facilitate the toxic effects of beta amyloid in Alzheimer's disease"” in a new light, suggesting the molecule actually protects the neuron in the periphery from beta amyloid-induced damage.

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USC researchers have taken an important first step toward protecting against Huntington disease using gene therapy. Huntington Disease is an incurable neurological disorder characterized by uncontrolled movements, emotional instability and loss of intellectual faculties. It affects about 30,000 people in the United States, and children of parents with the disease have a 50 percent chance of inheriting it themselves.

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One of the highlights of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology is "Neurobowl," a competition modeled after TV quiz shows. Like a quiz show, Neurobowl awards points for answering questions quickly and accurately, and subtracts points for wrong answers. The tougher the question, the higher the point value.

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New studies in pregnant mice using antibodies against fetal brains made by the mothers of autistic children show that immune cells can cross the placenta and trigger neurobehavioral changes similar to autism in the mouse pups.

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For the past decade, researchers have tried to tweak cells at the gene and nucleus level to reprogram their identity. Now, working on the idea that the signature of a cell is defined by molecules called messenger RNAs, which contain the chemical blueprint for how to make a protein, researchers have found another way to change one cell type into another.

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New research shows the sleep disruption associated with jet lag and shift work occurs in two separate but linked groups of neurons below the hypothalamus at the base of the brain.

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For a decade, Alzheimer's disease researchers have been entrenched in debate about one of the mechanisms believed to be responsible for brain cell death and memory loss in the illness.

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A first of its kind study examining the effects of methamphetamine use during pregnancy has found the drug appears to cause abnormal brain development in children. The research is published in the April 15, 2009, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Individuals who take aspirin or other medications that prevent blood clotting by inhibiting the accumulation of platelets appear more likely to have tiny, asymptomatic areas of bleeding in the brain, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the June print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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Abnormalities in the fibers connecting different brain areas may contribute to muscle disorders such as writer's cramp, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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A test developed by physician-scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may help assess whether certain Alzheimer's drugs are hitting their target.

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A new study conducted at Mayo Clinic reports that one in six patients receiving therapeutic doses of certain drugs for Parkinson's disease develops new-onset, potentially destructive behaviors, notably compulsive gambling or hypersexuality.

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Research about autism is growing, but not fast enough to keep up with the need. According to Michelle Rowe, Ph.D., professor of health services at Saint Joseph's University, one in 150 children in the United States has been diagnosed with autism, and every day the list of potential causes grows.

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For the first time, researchers have clearly shown regeneration of a critical type of nerve fiber that travels between the brain and the spinal cord and which is required for voluntary movement. The regeneration was accomplished in a brain injury site in rats by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have compiled the first-ever review of the neurobiology of wisdom "“ once the sole province of religion and philosophy. The study by Dilip V. Jeste, MD, and Thomas W. Meeks, MD, of UC San Diego's Department of Psychiatry and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging.

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Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research have demonstrated that attacks on the mitochondrial protein Drp1 by the free radical nitric oxide"”which causes a chemical reaction called S-nitrosylation"”mediates neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer's disease. Prior to this study, the mechanism by which beta-amyloid protein caused synaptic damage to neurons in Alzheimer's disease was unknown.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have shed light on how the neurotransmitter dopamine helps brain cells process important information.

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A new theory about sleep's benefits for the brain gets a boost from fruit flies in this week's Science. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that sleep, already recognized as a promoter of long-term memories, also helps clear room in the brain for new learning.

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If you've ever been sleep-deprived, you know the feeling that your brain is full of wool.

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Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.

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Professors of kinesiology and community health at Illinois have found that physical activity may increase students' cognitive control "“ or ability to pay attention "“ and also result in better performance on academic achievement tests.

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By doing a set of vigorous visual exercises on a computer every day for several months, patients who had gone partially blind as a result of suffering a stroke were able to regain some vision.

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In this week's open-access journal PLoS Biology, research teams at the University of Utah John A. Moran Eye Center and the University of Colorado at Boulder report technical advances that have reduced the time it takes to process high-speed "color" ultrastructure mapping of brain regions down to a few months.

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Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in cats have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function.

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A new study shows that people with multiple sclerosis may be at a lower risk for cancer overall, but at a higher risk of developing certain types of cancer, such as brain tumors and bladder cancer. The study is published in the March 31, 2009, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Saint Louis University researchers find that a protein in tick saliva shows promise as a potential treatment for the debilitating neuromuscular disorder myasthenia gravis.

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The visual system has limited capacity and cannot process everything that falls onto the retina. Instead, the brain relies on attention to bring salient details into focus and filter out background clutter. Two recent studies by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, one study employing computational modeling techniques and the other experimental techniques, have helped to unravel the mechanisms underlying attention.

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A receptor for glutamate, the most prominent neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a key role in the process of "unlearning," report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, published in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, could eventually help scientists develop new drug therapies to treat a variety of disorders, including phobias and anxiety disorders, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder.

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While finding a biomarker for Parkinson's disease that would let physicians screen for or track progression of the disease remains an elusive goal, a team led by a University of Illinois at Chicago neuroscientist has shown that a non-invasive brain scanning technique offers promise.

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Findings from one of the largest-ever imaging studies of depression indicate that a structural difference in the brain "“ a thinning of the right hemisphere "“ appears to be linked to a higher risk for depression, according to new research at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

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People who have osteoporosis are more likely to also have vertigo, according to a study published in the March 24, 2009, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A type of brain cell that was long overlooked by researchers embodies one of very few ways in which the human brain differs fundamentally from that of a mouse or rat. Human astrocytes are bigger, faster, and much more complex than those in mice and rats.

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A new study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers is the first to pinpoint damage inside the brains of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome "“ a finding that links the illness to chemical exposures and may lead to diagnostic tests and treatments.

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An important clinical repercussion in the treatment of epilepsy has been discovered by a research team led by Scott Mintzer, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and the Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. The team has determined that two of the most commonly prescribed anti-seizure medications may lead to significantly increased levels of cholesterol, C-reactive protein and other markers of cardiovascular disease risk.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered a mode of action for mysterious but diagnostic protein snarls found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients that suggests a one-two punch of therapy may be needed to combat the neurodegenerative disease.

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A new type of brain-imaging scanner shows that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons that sends signals throughout the brain.

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Researchers trying to uncover the mechanisms that cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder have found an abnormality in the brains of adolescent boys suffering from the conditions, but not where they expected to find it.