Feature Channels: Neuro

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One of the first studies to look at a relationship between death and the two types of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or problems with memory and thinking abilities, suggests that people who have thinking problems but their memory is still intact might have a higher death rate in a period of six years compared to those who have no thinking or memory problems. The research was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014. The same was suggested in the study for those who are experiencing MCI with memory decline; however the first group had the highest death rate.

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Better-educated people appear to be significantly more likely to recover from a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), suggesting that a brain’s “cognitive reserve” may play a role in helping people get back to their previous lives, new Johns Hopkins research shows.

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Johns Hopkins scientists report that rats exposed to high-energy particles, simulating conditions astronauts would face on a long-term deep space mission, show lapses in attention and slower reaction times, even when the radiation exposure is in extremely low dose ranges.

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Two new studies may offer hope for people with migraine. The two studies released today will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.

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An inexpensive glaucoma drug, when added to a weight loss plan, can improve vision for women with idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), according to a study funded by NEI. This disorder mostly affects young, overweight women. Vision loss and headaches are common symptoms.

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A study demonstrated that hospitals participating in a national quality-improvement program have markedly increased the speed with which they treat stroke patients with the clot-busting drug. This speedier treatment was accompanied by reduced mortality, fewer treatment complications and a greater likelihood that patients would go home after leaving the hospital instead of being referred to a skilled nursing facility.

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A recently FDA-approved device has been shown to reduce seizures in patients with medication-resistant epilepsy by as much as 50 percent. When coupled with an innovative electrode placement planning system developed by physicians at Rush, the device facilitated the complete elimination of seizures in nearly half of the implanted Rush patients enrolled in the decade-long clinical trials.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are making breakthroughs that could benefit people suffering from depression.

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Researchers from NeuroPhage Pharmaceuticals, Inc. have engineered a series of molecules with the potential to treat most neurodegenerative diseases that are characterized by misfolded proteins, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.

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Researchers at the University of Toronto say a sleep disorder that causes people to act out their dreams is the best current predictor of brain diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

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For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that narrowing of the carotid artery in the neck without any symptoms may be linked to problems in learning, memory, thinking and decision-making, compared to people with similar risk factors but no narrowing in the neck artery, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.

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Eastern and Western views about consciousness will clash at the 20 year anniversary conference ‘Toward a Science of Consciousness” which kicks off April 21 at the Marriott University Park Hotel at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Web-based TV channel ‘Consciousness Central’ will show plenary lectures, interviews with key figures, commentary and analysis, clips from previous conferences, scenes from the consciousness art show, poetry slam, ‘zombie blues’, and parties.

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– Researchers may have identified key genes linked to why some people have a higher tolerance for pain than others, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.

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A team of researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), Weill Cornell Medical College, and Brandeis University has devised a wholly new approach to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease involving the so-called retromer protein complex. Retromer plays a vital role in neurons, steering amyloid precursor protein (APP) away from a region of the cell where APP is cleaved, creating the potentially toxic byproduct amyloid-beta, which is thought to contribute to the development of Alzheimer's.

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A group of scientists from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has found interesting new information in a study on depression and neuropsychological function in Parkinson's disease (PD).

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The cause of neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease is still unknown, but a new study proposes that neurons may be mistaken for foreign invaders and killed by the person’s own immune system, similar to the way autoimmune diseases like type I diabetes, celiac disease, and multiple sclerosis attack the body’s cells.

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New research uncovers a conceptually novel approach to treating depression. Instead of dampening neuron firing found with stress-induced depression, researchers demonstrated for the first time that further activating these neurons opens a new avenue to mimic and promote natural resilience.

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Older people who have apathy but not depression may have smaller brain volumes than those without apathy, according to a new study published in the April 16, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Apathy is a lack of interest or emotion.

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In a paper published in the April 16 print issue of the journal Neuron, University of Iowa researchers Bernd Fritzsch and Jeremy Duncan and their colleagues at Harvard Medical School, along with investigator and corresponding author Elizabeth Engle, describe how their studies on mutated mice mimic human mutations.

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Spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) is a rare inherited neuromuscular disorder characterized by slowly progressive muscle weakness and atrophy. In a new study published in the April 16, 2014 online issue of Neuron, a team of scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say novel mouse studies indicate that mutant protein levels in muscle cells are fundamentally involved in SBMA, suggesting an alternative and promising new avenue of treatment.

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Scientists at the Salk Institute have created a new model of memory that explains how neurons retain select memories a few hours after an event. This new framework provides a more complete picture of how memory works, which can inform research into disorders liked Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, post-traumatic stress and learning disabilities.

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Insel’s quote appeared in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release that described a newly published study of monkeys in the journal Science, where researchers for the first time found that in-sync large-scale brain waves affecting various regions of the brain hold memories of objects just viewed. “This study provides more evidence that large-scale electrical oscillations across distant brain regions may carry information for visual memories,” added Insel.

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By tracking brain activity when an animal stops to look around its environment, neuroscientists can mark the birth of a memory.

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A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has uncovered a new aspect of autism, revealing that proteins involved in autism interact with many more partners than previously known.

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In the April 11, 2014 issue of Science, Associate Investigator C. Ron Yu, Ph.D. and colleagues at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research identify a developmental window during which olfactory neurons of newborn mice can form a proper wiring map. They show that if incorrect neuronal connections are maintained after this period, renewing cells will also be mis-wired.

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When startled by predators, tiny fruit flies respond like fighter jets – employing screaming-fast banked turns to evade attacks.

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Working with human neurons and fruit flies, researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified and then shut down a biological process that appears to trigger a particular form of Parkinson’s disease present in a large number of patients.

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Researchers will present findings at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting on the study that sheds light on the basis of neuropathic pain that persists after apparently successful surgery.

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Older people who are starting to have memory and thinking problems, but do not yet have dementia may have a lower risk of dying from cancer than people who have no memory and thinking problems, according to a study published in the April 9, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Researchers will present findings of a study testing a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of IV acetaminophen in post-craniotomy patients at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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Researchers who reviewed the outcomes of more than 470 aneurysm patients, nearly evenly divided between those whose procedure involved coiling or clipping, will present findings of their study during the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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A team of researchers has reviewed a nationwide, prospective, longitudinal outcomes database that measures the safety and effectiveness of everyday neurosurgical spine care and will present the findings at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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A research team will present the findings at the 82nd AANS Annual Scientific Meeting, reporting significant discrepancies between discharge codes and surgeons’ own diagnoses.

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A team of researchers will present their finding that proprioception significantly improved prosthetic control in the absence of vision at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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A team of researchers announced interesting results at the 2014 AANS Annual Scientific Meeting from their investigation on the influence of Aquaporin 4 on intracranial hemorrhage.

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The sense of smell might seem intuitive, almost something you take for granted. But researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center have found that memory of specific odors depends on the ability of the brain to learn, process and recall accurately and effectively during slow-wave sleep — a deep sleep characterized by slow brain waves.

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Results of a study that revealed significant differences in the tumors by subgroup will be presented at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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At the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting, researchers will present the results of a study to determine the cumulative effects of head impacts as they relate to changes in the brain absent of concussion.

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Three neuroscientists discuss the emerging consensus on age-related memory loss and what researchers hope to learn in coming years.

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Johns Hopkins researchers say they have confirmed suspicions that DNA modifications found in the blood of mice exposed to high levels of stress hormone — and showing signs of anxiety — are directly related to changes found in their brain tissues.

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When you throw a wild pitch or sing a flat note, it could be that your basal ganglia made you do it. This area in the middle of the brain is involved in motor control and learning. And one reason for that errant toss or off-key note may be that your brain prompted you to vary your behavior to help you learn, from trial-and-error, to perform better. But how does the brain do this, how does it cause you to vary your behavior?

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Scientists at the Salk Institute have uncovered details into a surprising—and crucial—link between brain development and a gene whose mutation is tied to breast and ovarian cancer. Aside from better understanding neurological damage associated in a small percentage of people susceptible to breast cancers, the new work also helps to better understand the evolution of the brain.

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Four young men who have been paralyzed for years achieved groundbreaking progress – moving their legs – as a result of epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, life scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the Pavlov Institute of Physiology reported today in the journal 'Brain.'

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Four people with paraplegia are able to voluntarily move previously paralyzed muscles as a result of a novel therapy involving electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

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Researchers will present findings at the AANS Annual Scientific meeting of their studying testing if Intralaminar thalamic deep brain stimulation (ILN-DBS) could have an effect on dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases that cause severe cognitive dysfunction.

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A new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center reviews research that suggests that the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease among older African Americans may be two to three times greater than in the non-Hispanic white population and that they differ from the non-Hispanic white population in risk factors and disease manifestation. The study results will be published in the April 7 issue of Health Affairs.

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Researchers who conducted intraparenchymal transplantation of bone marrow-derived cell therapy in chronic stroke patients will present their findings at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting.

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During a presentation during the 82nd AANS Annual Scientific Meeting, researchers highlighted the results of research that explores whether 5 aminolevulinic-acid fluorescence (5-ALA) offers additional detection benefits compared to intraoperative MRI (iMRI) when dealing with invasive tumors.

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In a series of research studies, Cedars-Sinai spinal surgeons show that a new method of computer-guided spine surgery is beneficial for spinal reconstruction and for treating complex tumors and degenerative spine problems, resulting in fewer complications and better outcomes for patients.

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The team of Barry Dickson, former scientific director of the IMP, managed to isolate “moonwalker flies” in a high-throughput screen. Screening a large collection of fruit flies, the scientists found specimens that seemed locked in reverse gear. Dickson and his co-workers were able to trace these changes in walking direction back to the activity of specific neurons in the brain. The results of the study will be published in the current issue of Science.