Feature Channels: Neuro

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A new technique developed by Elisa Konofagou, associate professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia Engineering, has demonstrated for the first time that the size of molecules penetrating the blood-brain barrier can be controlled using acoustic pressure—the pressure of an ultrasound beam—to let specific molecules through. This innovative method, published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, may help improve drug delivery to the brain.

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A University of Utah team discovered a method for turning a small, $40 needle into a 3-D microscope capable of taking images up to 70 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

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Contrary to popular belief, not all meditation techniques produce similar effects of body and mind. Indeed, a recent study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has demonstrated for the first time that different types of Buddhist meditation – namely the Vajrayana and Theravada styles of meditation - elicit qualitatively different influences on human physiology and behaviour, producing arousal and relaxation responses respectively.

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A study from The Scripps Research Institute’s Florida campus and Columbia University shows the huntingtin gene plays a critical role in long-term memory.

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“One of the consequences of our new model will be to focus early childhood intervention on developing the particular strengths of the child’s brain, rather than exclusively trying to correct missing behaviors, a practice that may be a waste of a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Laurent Mottron, University of Montreal

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Treatments that involve neck manipulation may be associated with strokes, although this association is not proven, according to an American Heart Association Scientific Statement written by lead author Dr. Jose Biller of Loyola University Medical Center and other stroke experts.

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Chronic pain, which persists despite the fact that an injury has healed, can last for many months or years and may affect up to 15 percent of the adult population at any point in time. While it is a condition in its own right, it can be a component of other conditions. Neurostimulation, which involves stimulating pain-sensing nerves to convert painful sensations into nonpainful ones, offers a minimally invasive and reversible alternative to medication. A new report from an international team of experts provides comprehensive information on the safety and effectiveness of this type of treatment for conditions including failed back surgery syndrome and complex regional pain syndrome. More studies are needed for conditions such as peripheral neuropathic pain, postamputation pain and nerve pain from shingles.

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Researchers at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre have traced the origins of ADHD, substance abuse and conduct disorder, and found that they develop from the same neurocognitive deficits, which in turn explains why they often occur together.

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Sharpened pencils: check; notebooks and paper: check; school schedule: check. As a parent, this check list may seem familiar to you. It is a clear indication that back-to-school season is here and that means preparing your child for the school year as best as you can. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is helping you and your child finalize the list by providing top 10 expert tips on keeping your child healthy and safe all year round.

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Dangerous brain tumors hijack the brain’s existing blood supply throughout their progression, by growing only within narrow potential spaces between and along the brain’s thousands of small blood vessels. The findings help explain why drugs that aim to stop growth of new vessels have failed in brain tumor clinical trials.

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Neuromodulation appropriateness consensus committee questions and answers regarding neurostimulation and the committee findings

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The Neuromodulation Appropriateness Consensus Committee consists of 60 neurostimulation experts convened by the International Neuromodulation Society to respond to the need to better define use of these advanced medical devices.

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A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Hawaii demonstrates a new approach to measuring early brain development of infants, resulting in more accurate whole brain growth charts and providing the first estimates for growth trajectories of subcortical areas during the first three months after birth.

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A rare metabolic disease that caused hundreds of seizures daily for 6-year-old Chloe Olivarez is now significantly under control as part of a clinical trial led by Dr. Juan Pascual that uses a medicinal oil for treatment.

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Playing with the portions of good and not-so-good-for-you foods is better than trying to eliminate bad foods, according to a Vanderbilt study.

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Researchers report the first complex 3D model made of brain-like cortical tissue that exhibits biochemical and electrophysiological response and functions in vitro for months. The engineered tissue model uses a porous silk-scaffold, collagen gel matrix and rat-derived neurons. It offers new ways to study brain function, trauma and treatment.

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Bioengineers have created three-dimensional brain-like tissue that functions like and has structural features similar to tissue in the rat brain and that can be kept alive in the lab for more than two months. The tissue could provide a superior model for studying normal brain function as well as injury and disease, and could assist in the development of new treatments for brain dysfunction.

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Scientists at Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences have created the Human Dynamic Clamp to address the difficult problem of studying social interactions in the laboratory. Their findings were released today in an article titled “The Human Dynamic Clamp as a Paradigm for Social Interaction” in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have launched a clinical trial to investigate the safety of neural stem cell transplantation in patients with chronic spinal cord injuries.

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A large new genetic study in thousands of children and adolescents offers early glimpses of the overall patterns and connections among cognitive abilities such as language reasoning, reading skill and types of memory. The findings may lead to new tools in understanding human cognitive development and neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified the mechanism by which a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease causes often crippling muscle weakness in men, in addition to reduced fertility.

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Frequent marijuana use can have a significant negative effect on the brains of teenagers and young adults, including cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and decreased IQ, according to psychologists discussing public health implications of marijuana legalization at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.

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A significant development recently occurred that has been widely overlooked and may herald a major evolution in how America approaches sports injuries in intercollegiate and interscholastic sports. The NCAA has specifically set aside $70 million in a settlement fund to settle a class action suit brought by former student athletes complaining of later-in-life health conditions.

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Learning to play a musical instrument or to sing can help disadvantaged children strengthen their reading and language skills, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.

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People who suffer from a rare illness, the Mal de Debarquement Syndrome (MdDS), now have a chance for full recovery thanks to treatment developed by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

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Today the journal Science published results of a preclinical study demonstrating that treatment with orally available RNA splicing modifiers of the SMN2 gene starting early after birth is preventing deficits in a mouse model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).

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Building upon previous research, scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veteran’s Affairs San Diego Healthcare System report that neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and grafted into rats after a spinal cord injury produced cells with tens of thousands of axons extending virtually the entire length of the animals’ central nervous system.

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At least one part of the human brain may be able to process information the same way in older age as it does in the prime of life, according to new research conducted at the University of Adelaide.

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Lab mice have traits not found in wild mice, such as caring for others’ pups. Dr. Tali Kimchi, who studies the basis of social behavior – including maternal instinct – needed lab mice with those wild traits. She developed a mouse model that let her explore, for the first time, the biological roots of aggressiveness in females, particularly toward pups.

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UC San Francisco researchers have identified cells’ unique features within the developing human brain, using the latest technologies for analyzing gene activity in individual cells, and have demonstrated that large-scale cell surveys can be done much more efficiently and cheaply than was previously thought possible.

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Our brains are able to judge the trustworthiness of a face even when we cannot consciously see it, a team of scientists has found. Their findings shed new light on how we form snap judgments of others.

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Researchers have identified genetic variants that are associated with severe adverse skin reactions to the antiepileptic drug phenytoin, according to a study in the August 6 issue of JAMA.

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Scientists hope to borrow strategy from simpler animals to repair damaged spinal cord nerves in humans.

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Children and fetuses are the most at risk from neurological and biological damage that results from microwave radiation emitted by wireless devices, due to the higher rate of absorption of microwave radiation by children than by adults.

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In the first study of its kind, Prapti Gautam, PhD, and colleagues from The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles found that children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) showed weaker brain activation during specific cognitive tasks than their unaffected counterparts.

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Research led by the University of Adelaide has resulted in new insights into clinical depression that demonstrate there cannot be a "one-size-fits-all" approach to treating the disease.

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A new brain imaging study has identified the mechanisms involved in balancing blameworthiness and the emotion-driven urge to punish.

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Salk scientists find that a plant used for centuries by healers of São Tomé e Príncipe holds lessons for modern medicine.

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New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helps explain why brain tumors occur more often in males and frequently are more harmful.

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This supplement to the Journal of Neurosurgery covers the current knowledge of anticoagulant-associated intracerebral hemorrhage (AAICH) and methods in use for management of the condition. CME credits are available.

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Athletes and others reporting cognitive difficulties after a head injury are usually diagnosed as having had a concussion. But is it really a concussion? A new study published by University at Buffalo medical faculty finds that many of the same symptoms are common to concussions and to injuries to the neck and/or balance system, known collectively as cervical/vestibular injuries.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have mapped the sound-processing part of the mouse brain in a way that keeps both the proverbial forest and the trees in view. Their imaging technique allows zooming in and out on views of brain activity within mice, and it enabled the team to watch brain cells light up as mice “called” to each other. The results, which represent a step toward better understanding how our own brains process language, appear online July 31 the journal Neuron.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have evidence suggesting that neurons in the developing brains of mice are guided by a simple but elegant birth order rule that allows them to find and form their proper connections.

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Controlled application of vacuum pressure is a promising approach to limiting tissue damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI), suggests an experimental study in the August 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.

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A new study gives insight into the relationship between depression and dementia. The study is published in the July 30, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A new study by neuropsychiatric researchers at Rush University Medical Center gives insight into the relationship between depression and dementia.

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Researchers at UC San Francisco have found that children with sensory processing disorders have decreased structural brain connections in specific sensory regions different than those in autism, further establishing SPD as a clinically important neurodevelopmental disorder.

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In response to the Institute of Medicine's report on the current graduate medical education system, "Graduate Medical Education That Meets the Nation’s Health Needs," the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons present concerns regarding the looming shortage of neurosurgeons in the United States.