News • Multimodal optical spectroscopy
An infallible hand-held probe to aid cancer surgery
Canadian researchers have invented an intraoperative probe that reliably detects multiple types of tumour cells.
Neurology
News • Royal visit
Queen Máxima visits Congress of the European Academy of Neurology
The Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) in Amsterdam received a royal visit: H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands attended the major scientific event at RAI Amsterdam, in which over 6,000 people are participating.
News • Neurology
For headache, telemedicine may be as effective as in-person
For people with headache, seeing the neurologist by video for treatment may be as effective as an in-person visit, according to a study published in the June 14, 2017, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Article • Positron Emission Tomography
PET offers new multiple sclerosis insights
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is helping to provide MS experts some insight into what drives progression of the disease. PET also has the potential to quantify the effects of new, targeted therapies on MS patients, according to consultant neurologist Professor Bruno Stankoff.
News • Neuropathology
Detecting Alzheimer's disease before symptoms emerge
Long before symptoms of Alzheimer's disease become apparent to patients and their families, biological changes are occurring within the brain. Amyloid plaques, which are clusters of protein fragments, along with tangles of protein known as tau, form in the brain and grow in number, eventually getting in the way of the brain's ability to function. These biological changes can be detected early in…
News • Neurology
Unlocking the blood-brain barrier
Study reveals the surprising role of omega-3 fatty acids in keeping the blood-brain barrier closed
News • Neurology
New-found brain pathway has implications for schizophrenia treatment
Neuroscientists at Tufts University School of Medicine have discovered a new signaling pathway that directly connects two major receptors in the brain associated with learning and memory – the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) and the alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (a7nAChR) – which has significance for current efforts to develop drugs to treat schizophrenia.
News • Neural activity
Movie research results: Our brains are bad at multitasking
The brain works most efficiently when it can focus on a single task for a longer period of time. Previous research shows that multitasking, which means performing several tasks at the same time, reduces productivity by as much as 40%. Now a group of researchers specialising in brain imaging has found that changing tasks too frequently interferes with brain activity. This may explain why the end…
News • Just by thinking
Quadriplegic bridges injury to move again
Bill Kochevar is the first recipient of implanted brain-recording and muscle-stimulating systems reanimates limb that had been stilled for eight years.
News • Blood flow control
"Switch" in brain’s capillary network monitors activity
All it takes is the flip of a protein “switch” within the tiny wire-like capillaries of the brain to increase the blood flow that ensures optimal brain function. 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 nourish hard-working neurons.
Article • Virtual Brain
Computer model simulates epileptic events
Approximately one percent of the world population are epileptic; in France alone, an estimated 600,000 people regularly experience seizures.
Article • New Techniques
‘Very few people have a carbon hyper-polariser’
From the extremely new, but not generally available, to the somewhat new… very available and highly useful… Walter Kucharczyk outlines potentials and practicalities in advanced brain tumour Imaging.
Article • White matter
Age-appropriate disease? Doesn’t exist
What can we learn from population studies? According to Gabriel Krestin MD PhD there are things that we can un-learn, as well as learn, from population imaging studies.
News • Lab Study
A protein called PERK - Treating progressive supranuclear palsy
The brain disease “progressive supranuclear palsy” (PSP) is currently incurable and its symptoms can only be eased to a very limited degree. PSP impairs eye movements, locomotion, balance control, and speech. Scientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now discovered a molecular mechanism that may help in the search…
News • Stress Research
Chronic stress neurons discovered
A novel population of neurons that are only activated following chronic stress is identified. Today, stress is part of everyday life. However, when stress is chronic it can lead to distressing illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders. In their latest study, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have identified a population of neurons in the hypothalamus that…
Interview • Neurological diseases
No case for a psychiatrist’s couch
Up to ten years ago only a handful of antibodies that could be detected in the blood were known to neurology.
News • Study
Molecular Roots of Alzheimer’s
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have detailed the structure of a molecule that has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Knowing the shape of the molecule — and how that shape may be disrupted by certain genetic mutations — can help in understanding how Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases develop and how to prevent and treat them.
News • Neurology
Neural stem cells found in brain of epilepsy patients
Neural stem cells have been found in epileptic brain tissue - outside the regions of the brain where they normally reside. In a group of patients who underwent surgery for epilepsy, over half had stem cells where healthy individuals do not have them, according to a study from Sahlgrenska Academy.
News • During Surgery
Neurosurgeons harness 3-D technology to map brain
Cedars-Sinai neurosurgeons have begun using a high-definition imaging device to see inside the brain during surgery, allowing them to map safer pathways to reach and remove tumors.
Article • Computer intelligence
Cognition-guided surgery – a rocky road
Surgery will change – with all the challenges that developments such as Big Data create there are no two ways about it. However, how deep those changes run remains to be seen. In a rather young field of research, scientists look at the ways all components used during surgery can be interlinked. Professor Beat Müller, co-initiator of the project ‘Cognition-Guided Surgery’, explains results…
Article • Neurology
The 3-D printed brain tumour
3-D printed tumour-like constructs will be used by a research team at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, to raise research to a new level and successfully lead to new treatment options.
Article • Brain functions transfer
Pioneering cancer surgery
Brain cancer treatment is taking a major step ahead as Spanish surgeons pioneer a new technique that spares language and motion functions. This splendid development might even one day result in epilepsy surgery.
News • Stroke Patients
New hope for recovery of hand movement
Stroke patients are starting a trial of a new electronic device to recover movement and control of their hand. Neuroscientists at Newcastle University have developed the device, the size of a mobile phone, which delivers a series of small electrical shocks followed by an audible click to strengthen brain and spinal connections.
News • Neurology
“Stroke clearly is a brain disease”
“The medical rationale for stroke being a disease of the brain is overwhelming.” This is the key message of an urgent appeal launched by leading neurology experts in The Lancet.1 The authors are making public their concern about the classification of stroke in the draft revision of the “International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems” (ICD) after an…
News • Neurodegenerative diseases
Brain cell ‘executioner’ identified
Despite their different triggers, the same molecular chain of events appears to be responsible for brain cell death from strokes, injuries and even such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have pinpointed the protein at the end of that chain of events, one that delivers the fatal strike by carving up a cell's DNA. The find, they say, potentially…
