The most common neurological diseases cost the United States $789 billion in 2014, and this figure is projected to grow as the elderly population doubles between 2011 and 2050, according to a new study published in the April issue of the Annals of Neurology.
The human brain's cerebellum controls the body's ability to tightly and accurately coordinate and time movements as fine as picking up a pin and as muscular as running a foot race. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have added to evidence that this structure also helps transfer so-called motor learning from one part of the body to another.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have successfully grown stem cells from children with a devastating neurological disease to help explain how different genetic backgrounds can cause common symptoms. They identified individual and shared defects in the cells that could inform treatment efforts.
A new analysis of patients who have undergone treatment for prostate cancer shows a connection between androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) – a testosterone-lowering therapy and a common treatment for the disease – and dementia, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mount Sinai Doctors Promote Early Detection and Free Screening
Blind tadpoles were able to process visual information from eyes grafted onto their tails after being treated with a small molecule neurotransmitter drug that augmented innervation, integration, and function of the transplanted organs. The work, which used a pharmacological reagent already approved for use in humans, provides a potential road map for promoting innervation – the supply of nerves to a body part – in regenerative medicine.
Using PET scans of the brain, University of Michigan researchers showed that dopamine falls and fluctuates at different times during a migraine headache.
The viruses hepatitis B and C may both be associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, according to a study published in the March 29, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The hepatitis virus affects the liver.
A massive new study involving blood samples from over 30,000 individuals has identified 13 new genetic risk factors for glioma, the most common type of malignant brain tumor in adults.
Doctors for the first time can determine which medication is more likely to help a patient overcome depression, according to research that pushes the medical field beyond what has essentially been a guessing game of prescribing antidepressants.
An international research team has demonstrated that an exaggerated emotional brain response to non-threatening information predicts emergence of clinically psychotic symptoms.
Bill Kochevar, who was paralyzed below his shoulders in a bicycling accident, is believed to be the first person with quadriplegia in the world to have arm and hand movements restored with the help of two temporarily implanted technologies.
Music therapy has been found to decrease pain in patients recovering from spine surgery, compared to a control group of patients who received standard postoperative care alone.
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a breakthrough therapeutic technique used to treat tumors. The principle of this noninvasive, targeted treatment is much like that of focusing sunlight through a lens, using an ultrasonic transducer like a convex lens to concentrate ultrasound into a small focal region. In this week’s Journal of Applied Physics, researchers have now designed a transducer for potential application in HIFU that can generate a steady, standing-wave field with a subwavelength-scale focal region and extremely high ultrasound intensity.
The biomechanics of head injury in youths (5 to 18 years of age) have been poorly understood. A new study reported in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics set out to determine what biomechanical characteristics predispose youths with concussions to experience transient or persistent postconcussion symptoms.
Patsy Whittenberg made the six-hour drive from the Texas Panhandle to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas to take advantage of a first for Texas –the latest in Gamma Knife surgery that better protects surrounding brain tissue and offers greater comfort without the need for head restraints.
In experiments with a protein called Ephexin5 that appears to be elevated in the brain cells of Alzheimer's disease patients and mouse models of the disease, Johns Hopkins researchers say removing it prevents animals from developing Alzheimer's characteristic memory losses. In a report on the studies, published online March 27 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers say the findings could eventually advance development of drugs that target Ephexin5 to prevent or treat symptoms of the disorder.
With a more accurate understanding of the characteristics and function of the receptor MRGRPX2, University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers were also able to create chemical probe that will allow them study the receptor more precisely.
Scientists partially re-insulated ravaged nerves in mouse models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and restored limb mobility by treating the animals with a small non-coding RNA called a microRNA. In a study published online March 27 in Developmental Cell, researchers report that treatment with a microRNA called miR-219 restarted production of a substance called myelin that is critical to normal function of the central nervous system.
By measuring brainwaves, it is possible to predict what a child’s reading level will be years in advance, according to research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.
Brain size in primates is predicted by diet, an analysis by a team of New York University anthropologists indicates. These results call into question “the social brain hypothesis,” which has posited that humans and other primates are big-brained due to factors pertaining to sociality.
In a Phase I clinical study, researchers were able to transform the immune system by taking cells damaged in Parkinson’s disease and making them cells that protect and defend against brain injury.
Neurologists at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center are conducting an 18-month clinical trial testing a type of insulin delivered in a nasal spray – which is used to treat diabetes in some patients – in the Study of Nasal Insulin to Fight Forgetfulness (SNIFF).
A federal health agency has found certain antidepressants and anti-seizure drugs are among medications that effectively treat diabetic nerve pain. The research is being published simultaneously in the March 24, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and in a more comprehensive report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
New research has uncovered that capillaries have the capacity to both sense brain activity and generate an electrical vasodilatory signal to evoke blood flow and direct nutrients to neurons.
Star-shaped cells called astrocytes, long considered boring, “support cells,” are finally coming into their own. To everyone’s surprise they even play an important role in the body’s master clock, which schedules everything from the release of hormones to the onset of sleepiness.
By inserting an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-linked human gene called TDP-43 into fruit flies, researchers at Stony Brook University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory discovered a potential role for ‘transposons’ in the disease.
These findings suggest that one of the most important risk factors for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, which is excess total and central fat in the body, is present relatively early in survivors of childhood brain tumors. This may program their future risk of these diseases and impact their outcomes. This indicates that these children need further monitoring for the factors that increase their risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, and that targeted therapies and prevention strategies are needed to deal with the early risk factors to improve survival and the quality of life of survivors.
The brain hosts an extraordinarily complex network of interconnected nerve cells that are constantly exchanging electrical and chemical signals at speeds difficult to comprehend. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report they have been able to achieve — with a custom-built microscope — the closest view yet of living nerve synapses.
In new research, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have implicated a specific molecule in the self-destruction of axons, the wiring of the nervous system. Understanding just how that damage occurs may help researchers find a way to halt it.
The American Academy of Neurology is awarding two California researchers the 2017 Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases for their work in dementia research. Claudia Kawas, MD, of the University of California, Irvine, and Kristine Yaffe, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, both members of the American Academy of Neurology, will be honored at the American Academy of Neurology’s 69th Annual Meeting in Boston.
Thin parts of the cell membranes of neurons turn out to be particularly vulnerable to a protein that collects in the brain of people with Alzheimer's disease, according to a University of Michigan researcher.
A consortium of 50 psychologists and psychiatrists, including Notre Dame professors Lee Anna Clark and David Watson, has outlined a new diagnostic model for mental illness.
A first of its kind mouse model could lead to an understanding of how cerebral malaria infection leads to the development of epilepsy in children and to the prevention of seizures.
More Americans than ever are turning to spiritual, meditative and religious retreats as a way to reset their daily life and enhance wellbeing. Now, researchers at The Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University show there are changes in the dopamine and serotonin systems in the brains of retreat participants. The team published their results in Religion, Brain & Behavior.
University of North Carolina scientists found that mucin proteins, which make mucus thick and sticky, fail to unfold properly in the airways of people with cystic fibrosis. And they found the lack of water in the lung can trigger the misfolding mucins.
A consortium of psychiatrists and psychologists from universities worldwide, co-led by Stony Brook University, University of Minnesota and University of Notre Dame, has proposed a new approach to diagnosing mental disorders.
The brains of those who are born blind make new connections in the absence of visual information, resulting in enhanced, compensatory abilities such as a heightened sense of hearing, smell and touch, as well as cognitive functions (such as memory and language) according to a new study led by Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers.
University of Pennsylvania, has received the 2017 Scientific Innovations Award from the Chicago-based Brain Research Foundation, which supports research for preventing and treating neurological diseases.
In a new study, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, University of Cyprus and Stanford University map the complex biological cascade caused by MIA: the expression of multiple genes involved in autism are turned up or down by MIA, affecting key aspects of prenatal brain development that may increase risk for atypical development later in life.
A unique institute is being formed to develop and investigate the forward-thinking ideas of eminent British physicist Sir Roger Penrose. To be based in San Diego, California, with collaborations in London and Oxford in the UK, and Tucson, Arizona, the Institute will examine the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity and the possible implications on our understanding of consciousness.
Inhibiting the Ezh2 enzyme may be counterproductive for treatment of certain cancers, including the aggressive brain tumor Group 3 medulloblastoma
We live in a three-dimensional world, but everything we see is first recorded on our retinas in only two dimensions.So how does the brain represent 3-D information? In a new study, researchers for the first time have shown how different parts of the brain represent an object’s location in depth compared to its 2-D location.
UCLA researchers have discovered the molecular basis of an incurable disease known as inclusion body myopathy, Paget disease with frontotemporal dementia, or IBMPFD. Using both fruit flies and human cells the researchers discovered how IBMPFD mutations cause cellular damage, and identified two compounds that are able to reverse the mutations effects. The findings suggest potential strategies to combat IBMPFD and other diseases, including ALS.
Standard antidepressant medications don’t work for everyone, and even when they do they are slow to kick in. In an effort to find better depression treatments, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that inhibiting an enzyme called Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) relieves signs of depression in mice. Moreover, inhibiting GLO1 worked much faster than the conventional antidepressant Prozac.
Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM) announced that Robert Wechsler-Reya, Ph.D., has been named program director for the Joseph Clayes III Research Center for Neuro-Oncology and Genomics at RCIGM. Wechsler-Reya, a professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP), will retain his position as director of the Tumor Initiation and Maintenance Program at SBP’s NCI-designated Cancer Center and will hold a joint appointment at RCIGM.
A study by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) shows that more than half of family doctors in Canada are still using manual devices to measure blood pressure, a dated technology that often leads to misdiagnosis.
With just an inexpensive micro-thin surgical needle and laser light, University of Utah engineers have discovered a minimally invasive, inexpensive way to take high-resolution pictures of an animal brain, a process that also could lead to a much less invasive method for humans.
Consistently using a tackling education program appears to help lessen youth football concussion severity and occurrence, say researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Specialty Day in San Diego, CA.
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