BrainBlog

Schacter DL, Slotnick SD. The cognitive neuroscience of memory distortion. Neuron. 2004 Sep 30;44(1):149-60. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA. Memory distortion occurs in the laboratory and in everyday life. This article focuses on false recognition, a common type of memory distortion in which individuals incorrectly claim to have encountered a novel object or event. By considering evidence from neuropsychology, neuroimaging, and electrophysiology, we address three questions. (1) Are there patterns of neural activity that can distinguish between true and false recognition? (2) Which brain regions contribute to false recognition? (3) Which brain regions play a role in monitoring or reducing false recognition? Neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies suggest that sensory activity is greater for true recognition compared to false recognition. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging results indicate that the hippocampus and several cortical re...

A press release from the Radiological Society of North America. Here is the abstract of the specific study mentioned in the release: [ abstract ]. MR imaging during brain surgery improves tumor removal OAK BROOK, Ill. - A specially adapted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner can help physicians remove brain tumors and all of the residual cancer during one surgical procedure, according to a study published in the October issue of the journal Radiology. Using intraoperative MR-guidance, surgical strategy was changed in one out of four cases. "Imaging during surgery provides intraoperative quality control. It presents valuable information during the procedure that allows the surgeon an opportunity to adjust the strategy," said lead author Christopher Nimsky, M.D., an associate professor at the University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. Prior to intraoperative imaging, small parts of the tumor could be inadvertently missed. This tumor residue usually requ...

A company press release concerning an agreement to develop additional research efforts in the search for pharmaceutical treatments for brain tumors: CombinatoRx and ABC2 Initiate Brain Cancer Collaboration: Partnership Speeds Search for Brain Cancer Cure Monday September 27, 8:33 am ET BOSTON and BURLINGAME, Calif., Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- CombinatoRx, Incorporated, a privately held pharmaceutical company, and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), a non-profit foundation dedicated to accelerating therapies leading to a cure for brain cancer, today announced that they have initiated a research collaboration aimed at identifying novel multi-target drugs for the treatment of brain cancer. The sponsored research will leverage the CombinatoRx proprietary combination high throughput screening (cHTS) platform in an effort to discover novel drug combinations that hit multiple targets relevant to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a deadly form of brain cancer. The cHTS platform allows...

A company press release regarding a treatment for brain tumors: Guilford Pharmaceuticals Announces Orphan Drug Designation for GLIADEL(R) Wafer; Market Exclusivity for GLIADEL(R) Extends Until 2010 BALTIMORE, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: GLFD) today announced that it has received notice from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that GLIADEL(R) Wafer (polifeprosan 20 with carmustine implant), the Company's proprietary brain cancer treatment, is entitled to seven years of market exclusivity for the treatment of patients with malignant glioma undergoing primary surgical resection. The seven-year period of exclusivity under the Orphan Drug Act commenced on the date of approval in February 2003 and extends until February 2010. The FDA's orphan drug program is intended to encourage research, development and approval of products for diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 patients in the United States per year an...

Here are some relevant highlights from this week’s major scientific and medical weeklies: Journal of the American Medical Association 22/29 September 2004 There are several contributions this week examining dietary intake and physical exercise habits in aging populations and their relationship to cognitive functioning and dementia. The issue also contains an editorial about these contributions. New England Journal of Medicine 23 September 2004 This issue includes a Clinical Practice case vignette about Bell’s Palsy by Gilden. Lancet 25 September 2004 This week’s Lancet includes a comment entitled, Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies: A difference in dose? and two research letters on the topic of Parkinson’s: alpha-synuclein locus duplication as a cause of familial Parkinson's disease by Chartier-Harlin and colleagues and Causal relation between alpha-synuclein gene duplication and familial Parkinson's disease by Ibáñez an...

A small but fascinating area of study in neuropsychology is the examination of the abilities of artists who have sustained some form or another of brain disease. Painters, musicians, writers have all been studied, usually in detailed individual case studies. Changes as a result of progressive disorders (e.g., Alzheimer disease) or as a result of an acute event (e.g., stroke) have been examined, as well as the artistic productions of nonprofessionals (e.g., autistic children). A new review article is available that discusses this work in detail. The article and its author are discussed in this press release from the University of Pennsylvania: September 21, 2004 Artistic Expression Need Not End, and Can Even Improve After Brain Damage Penn Researcher Finds Neuropsychological Processes Offer Insights into Artistic Production ...

This corporate press release on BusinessWire about a drug candidate for treatment of primary brain tumors: Ecopia's Lead Cancer Compound Shown to Cross Blood-Brain Barrier September 23, 2004 08:26 AM US Eastern Timezone MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2004--Ecopia BioSciences Inc. (TSX:EIA) has obtained results demonstrating that its lead compound ECO-4601, a drug candidate to treat brain cancer, crosses the blood-brain barrier. This new data, coupled with previous efficacy data in glioma animal models as well as the compound's safety profile, reinforces the Company's strategy to pursue the development of ECO-4601 for treatment of primary brain cancer. This will allow Ecopia to rapidly access an underserved and growing market of patients with a very bleak prognosis. Current treatment options for primary brain cancer are limited and often present challenges in delivering the drug to its target, which...

A report at Science Daily concerning a new research study: New Way To Protect Brain From Stroke Damage Researchers have uncovered a new culprit behind the brain injury suffered by stroke victims. Their new study, published in the Sept. 17 issue of Cell, links brain cell damage to a rise in brain acidity following the oxygen depletion, or ischemia, characteristic of stroke. The results may lead to new therapies designed to avert the often debilitating effects of stroke, for which successful treatments are currently lacking, the researchers said. A series of experiments in laboratory dishes and in animals implicates a recently described class of membrane ion channels, called acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs), to the influx of calcium in nerve cells starved of oxygen and subjected to acidic conditions. That calcium overload, long attributed to another group of cellular components, is essential for stroke injury as it sets off a cascade of events toxic to cells, said neurophysiol...

A curious report from New Scientist : Rats' brain waves could find trapped people 19:00 22 September 04 Rats equipped with radios that transmit their brainwaves could soon be helping to locate earthquake survivors buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings. Rats have an exquisitely sensitive sense of smell and can crawl just about anywhere. This combination makes them ideal candidates for sniffing out buried survivors. For that, the animals need to be taught to home in on people, and they must also signal their position to rescuers on the surface. In a project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, Linda and Ray Hermer-Vazquez of the University of Florida in Gainesville have worked out a way to achieve this. Trained rats reach the places that sniffer dogs cannot First the researchers identified the neural signals rats generate when they have found a scent that they are looking for. “When a dog is sniffing a bomb, he makes a unique movement that the...

This week's issue of JAMA is getting a good deal of media attention for several articles that assess dietary intake and exercise habits and their impact on cognitive functioning and dementia in older indviduals. Following is the abstract one of the reports. This study is also important in neuropsychology as it is part of the Nurses' Health Study, which is a large scale study of aging that includes telephone-based cognitive assessments. Jennifer Weuve, ScD; Jae Hee Kang, ScD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD; Monique M. B. Breteler, MD; James H. Ware, PhD; Francine Grodstein, ScD. Physical Activity, Including Walking, and Cognitive Function in Older Women . JAMA.  2004;292:1454-1461. Context:  Physical activity may help maintain cognitive function in older adults. Objective:  To examine the relation of long-term regular physical activity, including walking, to cognitive function. Design:  Women reported participation in leisure-time physical activities on biennial ma...

Garces-Redondo M, Santos S, Perez-Lazaro C, Pascual-Millan LF. The supermarket test: Preliminary normative data in our milieu (in Spanish). Rev Neurol. 2004 Sep 1-15; 39(5): 415-8. Hospital Clinico Universitario Lozano Blesa, Zaragoza, Espana. INTRODUCTION. Semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tests are often used in basic neuropsychological evaluation. They are not time consuming and are easy to apply, but the normative data have been validated mainly for the Anglo-Saxon population, which can lead us to make mistakes in classifying normality. AIMS. To evaluate the category 'things you can buy at a supermarket' as a task for exploring SVF applied to a Castilian-speaking population of Spaniards with the aim of conducting a pilot normative test in our milieu. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. The 'things you can buy at a supermarket' task was applied to a sample of 139 healthy subjects without cognitive impairment, whose mother tongue is Spanish. The subjects were subclassified a...

From a University of Illinois at Chicago press release : World’s Most Powerful MRI for Decoding the Human Brain Newswise — The University of Illinois at Chicago unveiled today the world's most powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine for human studies, capable of imaging not just the anatomy but metabolism within the brain. This advanced technology ushers in a new age of metabolic imaging that will help researchers understand the workings of the human brain, detect diseases before their clinical signs appear, develop targeted drug therapies for illnesses like stroke and provide a better understanding of learning disabilities. Central to the technology is a 9.4-tesla magnet, larger than any other human-sized magnet, built by GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company. A tesla is a large measuring unit of magnetic strength. "This technological leap forward is as revolutionary to the medical community as the transition from radio to television was for so...

An article from the Australian website, The Age: CogState promotes brain tests to draw takeover offers By Rebecca Urban September 22, 2004 Frustrated by its diminishing value on the Australian sharemarket, diagnostic maker CogState is pitching itself to some of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies as a potential takeover target. Just seven months after the company's public listing, chief executive Peter Bick told The Age that he had become impatient with the lack of trading in its shares and selling the business might be the only way to recoup lost value for shareholders. Dr Bick would not confirm which companies he was talking to. But pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Lundbeck are believed to be high on the hit-list given they are the only companies worldwide to have Alzheimer's disease drugs approved for the market. CogState's computerised brain test helps diagnose Alzheimer's by alerting doctors to changes ...

James B. Duke professor emeritus dies at 81: Irving Diamond researched brain evolution, structure and function. The Chronicle Online: The Independent Daily at Duke University From Staff and Wire Reports 17 September 2004 Irving Diamond, a retired James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and a prominent researcher in human and animal sensory systems, died Tuesday at his Durham home. He was 81. Diamond, born in Chicago Sept. 17, 1922, received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago. After serving from 1943 to 1946 in the U.S. Army, Diamond joined the University of Chicago faculty and taught there for a decade before coming to Duke in 1958. “He was an important figure in neuropsychology,” said George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament in the Divinity School Moody Smith, a friend and colleague to Diamond. “He loved intellectual controversy and was always open minded.” The aut...

Targeted therapy knocks out pediatric brain cancer in mice Scientists have identified what may be the first nontoxic treatment for a subset of medulloblastoma, the most common type of malignant pediatric brain tumor. The finding is encouraging in that such precise, targeted therapies may someday replace traditional treatments that can have overwhelmingly negative side effects for pediatric cancer patients. The research is published in the September issue of Cancer Cell. "Therapy for pediatric cancers of the central nervous system has not improved significantly in the last three decades," explains study author Dr. Tom Curran from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. "This is partly due to the absence of adequate model systems for testing novel therapies." Dr. Curran and colleagues used a mouse model of medulloblastoma that they had developed to examine whether selective inhibition of the Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway coul...

MIT to name new director of McGovern brain center The Boston Globe By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff  |  September 20, 2004 The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will announce today that Robert Desimone, scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health, has been chosen as its new director, according to MIT officials. Desimone will replace Phillip A. Sharp, the Nobel laureate biologist who has led the McGovern Institute since it was created four years ago with a $350 million gift from International Data Group founder Patrick J. McGovern and his wife, Lore Harp McGovern. It was the largest gift ever pledged to a university at the time, and the McGovern Institute is a key part of MIT's efforts to develop the best neuroscience program in the world. [ ... Read the full article ...]

Hart T, Sherer M, Whyte J, Polansky M, Novack TA. Awareness of behavioral, cognitive, and physical deficits in acute traumatic brain injury . Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004; 85:1450-6. OBJECTIVE: To compare awareness of deficit in 3 domains of function (physical, cognitive, behavioral/emotional) in acute traumatic brain injury (TBI), controlling for severity of impairment in the different domains. DESIGN: Inception cohort. SETTING: Three inpatient rehabilitation programs. PARTICIPANTS: People with acute TBI (N=161), tested as soon as feasible after posttraumatic amnesia. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. Main outcome measures Awareness Questionnaire (AQ) completed by the person with TBI and the treating neuropsychologist; and self- and clinician-rating scores calculated in the 3 domains. RESULTS: For participants who were rated by clinicians as more impaired in at least 1 domain (ie, scored lower on the AQ), self-ratings differed significantly from one another in all 3 domains, with behav...

As a follow-up to this week's news about dementia and the voter, I note that the senior author of the JAMA article has a funded project to examine this issue, called the Dementia Voting Project [ project website ]. According to the site's homepage: "Welcome to the Dementia Voting Project. The goal of this project is to identify and address the ethical, legal, political, medical and practical issues regarding the rights and abilities of individuals with dementia and other causes of cognitive impairment to vote." According to the site, some of the questions they are examining include: How should we understand the construct of "the capacity to vote"? How can a person assess another person's "capacity to vote?" What kind of assistance in voting is appropriate to provide to a person with cognitive impairment who retains sufficient residual capacity to cast a meaningful vote...

Au R, Seshadri S, Wolf P, Elias M, Elias P, Sullivan L, Beiser A, D'Agostino R. New norms for a new generation: Cognitive performance in the Framingham Offspring Cohort . Exp Aging Res. 2004 Oct-Dec; 30(4): 333-58. Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. A previous publication presented normative data on neuropsychological tests stratified by age, gender, and education based on the Original Cohort of the Framingham Heart Study. Many contemporary investigations include subject samples with higher levels of education, a factor known to affect cognitive performance. Secular change in education prompted the reexamination of norms in the children of the Original Cohort. The study population consisted of 853 men and 988 women from the Offspring Study, free of clinical neurological disease, who underwent a neuropsychological examination, which included tests given to their parents in 1974 to 1976 as well as additional newer test...

Here are some relevant highlights from the new issues of the major medical and scientific weeklies: Journal of the American Medical Association 15 September 2004 JAMA ’s contents this week include the report about dementia and the voter by Karlawish and colleagues, which has been quite newsworthy (see earlier posts). This issue also includes an editorial concerning pharmaceutical clinical-trials registration: Clinical Trial Registration: A Statement From the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors . British Medical Journal 18 September 2004 This week’s BMJ also publishes the editorial concerning clinical-trials registration. New England Journal of Medicine 16 September 2004 This week’s issue contains a review article about Turner’s Syndrome by Sybert and McCauley. The clinical-trials editorial also appears. Nature 16 September 2004 Includes the letter , Early brain growth in Homo erectus and implications for cognitive ability by Coqueugniot ...

Medicare has announced that it will begin authorizing coverage for obtaining PET scans to aid in diagnosis for patients with atypical symptoms of Alzheimer's disease or those suspected of rarer dementing diseases, such as the "fronto-temporal" dementias. Reuters quotes Mark McClellan, administrator of the agency that oversees Medicare, saying, "We ought to approve coverage for patients who've been worked up but whose diagnosis is uncertain." From the Washington Post : Medicare Will Pay for Alzheimer's Scan Doubts About Technology Lead Agency to Cover Only Some Patients By Rick Weiss and David Brown The Washington Post Friday, September 17, 2004; Page A02 Medicare will start paying for specialized brain scans in some patients to help determine if they have Alzheimer's disease, the federal agency that runs the reimbursement program announced yesterday. The decision caps a four-year struggle by makers of the technology -- kno...

This Canadian National Post report , among many yesterday and today, outlines ANS [ company website ] and Cyberonics [ company website ] issues: Advanced Neuromodulation Systems bids US$22 a share for Cyberonics Canadian Press (copyright) Thursday, September 16, 2004 DALLAS (AP) - Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc. said Wednesday that it offered to buy fellow medical-device maker Cyberonics Inc. for $22 US a share, putting a price on the business combination it proposed last month. The combination of the only two publicly held companies solely devoted to neuromodulation would make them both more competitive and lead to more innovation in the field, said Chris Chavez, president and chief executive of ANS, in a statement. Neuromodulation uses implanted devices to stimulate and manipulate nervous system response. ANS makes radio-wave devices that disrupt pain signals sent by the nervous system. Cyberonics makes a device for epileptics that is implanted under the coll...

CDC Lifts Limits on Meningitis Vaccine By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (copyright) 16 September 2004 Filed at 1:20 p.m. ET ATLANTA (AP) -- Replenished supplies of a childhood meningitis vaccine has prompted health officials Thursday to lift a previous recommendation that doctors postpone some of the shots. All four shots of the vaccine Prevnar may now be given to children between 2 months and 15 months. Because of shortages earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended in March that doctors give just two doses. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics lifted the limits placed on the vaccine because manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals now is able to make more of the vaccine. The prior shortages were attributed to production problems. Prevnar is used to protect children against invasive pneumococcal disease, which can lead to meningitis or bloodst...

Newspapers such as the New York Times , Washington Post , and Philadelphia Inquirer have done an admirable job over the past several years in occasionally detailing the daily life of caregivers and family members of people who have developed Alzheimer disease. Today's New York Times again provides a profile, this time of the Dillon family: The Long Goodbye: Alzheimer's in the Living Room: How One Family Rallies to Cope By JANE GROSS Published: September 16, 2004 After his retirement as a New York City carpenter four years ago, and before he faded into the incoherent fog of Alzheimer's disease, Christopher Dillon and his two grown sons renovated a bathroom in the basement of the family's Queens home. It would be the last multigeneration home-improvement project for the Dillons. But the tiny room with its stall shower would soon become center stage in a family's determined effort to care for a failing loved one at home. Giving Mr. Dillon, 66, a sho...

Snips from an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer concerning the JAMA article: Dementia poses challenge when it's time to vote The Philadelphia Inquirer By Stacey Burling INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Posted on Tue, Sep. 14, 2004 Snip: "It's clear the states have paid woefully inadequate attention to this issue," said Paul S. Appelbaum, chair of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and one of the authors. "Everybody with dementia at some point will cross the line from being able to do lots of tasks, including voting, to not being able to do that," he added. "There is a need to define the line." Snip: They say people with dementia should be encouraged - and helped - to vote as long as they understand the process. That includes thinking about how people with dementia or other mental problems react to something as confusing as Florida's notorious butterfly ballot. Simpler ballots with larger type and possi...

A fascinating piece in the Washington Post , as well as in the New York Times and in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association : Dementia and the Voter: Research Raises Ethical, Constitutional Questions By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 14, 2004; Page A01 Florida neurologist Marc Swerdloff was taken aback when one of his patients with advanced dementia voted in the 2000 presidential election. The man thought it was 1942 and Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. The patient's wife revealed that she had escorted her husband into the booth. "I said 'Did he pick?' and she said 'No, I picked for him,' " Swerdloff said. "I felt bad. She essentially voted twice" in the Florida election, which gave George W. Bush a 537-vote victory and the White House. As swing states with large elderly populations such as Florida gear up for another presidential election, a sleeper ...

Borlongan CV, Skinner SJ, Geaney M, Vasconcellos AV, Elliott RB, Emerich DF. Intracerebral transplantation of porcine choroid plexus provides structural and functional neuroprotection in a rodent model of stroke. Stroke, 2004 Sep; 35(9): 2206-10. Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, and the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, School of Graduate Studies, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Ga 30912-3200, USA. cborlongan@mail.mcg.edu BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Choroid plexus (CP) secretes a cocktail of neurotrophic factors. In the present study, CP from neonatal pigs was encapsulated within alginate microcapsules for in vitro and in vivo neuroprotective studies. METHODS: In vitro studies involved serum deprivation of rat embryonic cortical neurons and treatment with a range of concentrations of conditioned media from CP. For in vivo studies, rats received a 1-hour middle cerebral artery occlusion followed by intracranial transplantation of encapsulated or unenc...

Today's Science Times in the New York Times has a piece about the phenomenon of déjà vu: Déjà Vu: If It All Seems Familiar, There May Be a Reason By BENEDICT CAREY Excerpt: ...But the point, psychologists who study memory say, is that people take in a rich banquet of information without noticing it, or noticing and simply forgetting where it came from. It is entirely possible to read an Anne Rice novel and years later, after having forgotten the book, find that a first visit to New Orleans seems like a glimpse into a former life. Or to see one of the bar scenes from the movie "L.A. Confidential" and later walk into the Formosa Cafe for the first time and catch your breath. The familiarity can come from a variety of sources, some real and some not, said Dr. Kathleen McDermott, a colleague of Dr. Jacoby's at Washington University who studies memory. "It's well known that even if you imagine something now that may not have happened in the ...

VK Srikanth et al. Progressive dementia after first-ever stroke: A community-based follow-up study . Neurology 2004; 63:785-792. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Prof. Geoffrey A. Donnan, Director, National Stroke Research Institute, Neurosciences Building, Repatriation Hospital, Austin Health, 300 Waterdale Rd., Heidelberg Heights, Victoria 3081, Australia. Objectives: To examine the risk and determinants of a progressive dementia syndrome and cognitive impairment not dementia (CIND) in community-based nonaphasic first-ever stroke cases 1 year after stroke, relative to a matched community-based stroke-free group. Methods: Matched cohort design, with cognitive tests given on two occasions 9 months apart to 99 mild-to-moderate first-ever stroke patients and 99 age- and sex-matched people without stroke. At follow-up, progressive dementia or CIND were diagnosed, with judges blinded to stroke/nonstroke status. Results: Progressive dementia was diagnosed in 12....

News being reported from several news agencies in Australia about concern over risk of disease transmission via contaminated surgical instruments. Here is a report by The Australian : Killer brain disease hangs over patients Gosia Kaszubska September 14, 2004 MORE than 1000 people have been warned they may been exposed to a rare and fatal brain disease through contaminated surgical instruments used at the Royal Melbourne Hospital since March last year. The 1056 former patients face years of waiting to discover if they will develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an incurable illness that can lay dormant for decades. Concerns arose when it was confirmed a man who underwent brain surgery at the hospital twice last year had died of CJD. The hospital yesterday sent letters warning all patients who had undergone brain or spinal surgery in the past 18 months that there was an "extremely remote chance" the disease may have been transmitted through instruments used i...

A press release from UCLA highlights the work of some of their researchers, which is published in the 10 September 2004 issue of Science : Left and Right Ears Not Created Equal as Newborns Process Sound, UCLA/University of Arizona Scientists Discover Date: September 9, 2004 Contact: Elaine Schmidt ( elaines@support.ucla.edu ) Phone: 310-794-2272 Challenging decades of scientific belief that the decoding of sound originates from a preferred side of the brain, UCLA and University of Arizona scientists have demonstrated that right-left differences for the auditory processing of sound start at the ear. Reported in the Sept. 10 edition of Science, the new research could hold profound implications for rehabilitation of persons with hearing loss in one or both ears, and help doctors enhance speech and language development in hearing-impaired newborns. "From birth, the ear is structured to distinguish between various types of sounds and to send them to the optima...

The Associated Press reported this evening about today's FDA meeting (see yesterday's post: Forthcoming Meeting... ): FDA Panel Urges More Studies of Stroke Med By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (copyright) Filed at 8:51 p.m. ET WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -- A U.S. advisory panel on Friday recommended against approving AstraZeneca's new stroke prevention medication, Exanta, citing concerns about the drug's effect on the liver. An advisory panel of physicians, meeting in Bethesda, Md., advised the Food and Drug Administration that more long-term studies are needed to assess the drug's safety, The (Wilmington) News Journal reported. The FDA usually follows the recommendations of its advisory panels. The agency is expected to announce a decision on Exanta next month. At the hearing, AstraZeneca made its case for Exanta's approval to the panel. Hamish Cameron, a company vice president, told the panel that Exanta represents a "real advance'' in the p...

Several news organizations are publishing reports about a forthcoming paper in the Annals of Neurology concerning a case study about the loss of dreaming as a consequence of a stroke. One of the authors of the report, Dr. Claudio L. Bassetti, is quoted in these published reports as stating, "How dreams are generated, and what purpose they might serve, are completely open questions at this point. These results describe for the first time in detail the extent of lesion necessary to produce loss of dreaming in the absence of other neurological deficits. As such, they offer a target for further study of the localization of dreaming." Here is the abstract from Annals of Neurology : M. Bischof & C.L. Bassetti. Total dream loss: A distinct neuropsychological dysfunction after bilateral PCA stroke . Correspondence to Claudio L. Bassetti, Neurologische Poliklinik, Universitatsspital, Frauenklinikstrasse 26, CH-8091 Zurich, Switzerland The term Charcot-Wilbrand s...

For those new to this area, there are a number of major medical and scientific journals that publish on a weekly basis. These journals include: Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Science, and Nature. Here are some relevant highlights for the week: British Medical Journal 11 September 2004 Parkinson’s disease figures prominently in this week’s BMJ, from the cover featuring Muhammad Ali to an editorial, a “ patient’s journey” article , and a research paper by Ives and colleagues - Monoamine oxidase type B inhibitors in early Parkinson's disease: Meta-analysis of 17 randomised trials involving 3525 patients . The abstract for the Ives et al. paper concludes, “MAOBIs reduce disability, the need for levodopa, and the incidence of motor fluctuations, without substantial side effects or increased mortality. However, because few trials have compared MAOBIs with other antiparkinsonian drugs, uncertainty re...

Reuters reports that the FDA will be holding a meeting tomorrow to discuss Exanta and its use as an anti-stroke medication. Here is the text of the FDA announcement about this meeting: FDA Announcement and the text of the FDA Briefing Note: FDA Briefing Note . Here is the report as published on the New York Times website (free registration required): FDA Queries AstraZeneca Drug's Efficacy By REUTERS (copyright). Filed at 8:54 a.m. ET LONDON (Reuters) - Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have questioned both the efficacy and safety of AstraZeneca Plc's new anti-stroke pill Exanta, according to documents posted on the agency's Web site on Thursday. Shares in the Anglo-Swedish drug maker fell 4.2 percent to 25.08 pounds as the news shook widespread confidence among investors that the potential blockbuster would be recommended for approval. A briefing note, posted on the FDA Web site one day ahead of an committee meeting on the drug, said the c...

Saygin AP, Wilson SM, Dronkers NF, Bates E. Action comprehension in aphasia: Linguistic and non-linguistic deficits and their lesion correlates. Neuropsychologia. 2004; 42(13): 1788-804. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive 0515, La Jolla, CA 92093-0515, USA. We tested aphasic patients' comprehension of actions to examine processing deficits in the linguistic and non-linguistic domains and their lesion correlates. Twenty-nine left-hemisphere injured patients and 18 age-matched control subjects matched pictured actions (with the objects missing) or their linguistic equivalents (printed sentences with the object missing) to one of two visually-presented pictures of objects. Aphasic patients performed poorly not only in the linguistic domain but also in the non-linguistic domain. A subset of the patients, largely consisting of severe and non-fluent aphasics, showed a greater deficit in the linguistic domain compared with ...

Today's New York Times provides a report about the ongoing debate concerning clinical-trials findings and the ability to balance favorable against unfavorable findings in an environment where unfavorable findings do not easily come to the fore: Expected Call for Advance Registration of Drug Tests By BARRY MEIER The debate over the disclosure of clinical drug trials could reach a turning point this week, with editors of influential medical journals expected to call for fundamental changes in the way such tests are reported. The journal editors, gatekeepers for the medical profession, are expected to begin requiring that drug trials be registered at the outset as a prerequisite for the subsequent publication of their results. Requiring such registration as a condition for reaching the journals' vast audience of doctors would make it difficult for drug companies to hide the results of unflattering tests - as some have been accused of doing. The journal editors declin...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced its approval of this medication as a treatment for a common neurological complication of diabetes. From the press release : FDA Approves Drug for Neuropathic Pain Associated With Diabetes Today the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of Cymbalta (duloxetine hydrochloride) capsules for the management of the pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy. This is the first drug specifically approved for this indication. Cymbalta received a priority review. "Diabetes affect millions of Americans," said Dr. Lester M. Crawford, Acting FDA Commissioner. "With this new treatment we will hopefully be able to help relieve the pain associated with this terrible disease." Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is a problem associated with long standing diabetes or poor glucose control. Peripheral neuropathy is the most common complication of diabetes mellitus, affecting up to 62% of...

Topics of increasing contemporary neuroscientific study are programmed neuron death, the messaging signals for the phenomenon, and potential ways to alter those signals in disease conditions. This review, in the September 2004 issue of Nature Reviews: Neuroscience , provides a detailed look. Benn SC & Woolf CJ. Adult neuron survival strategies — Slamming on the brakes. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2004; 5: 686-700.   Developing neurons are programmed to die by an apoptotic pathway unless they are rescued by extrinsic growth factors that generate an anti-apoptotic response. By contrast, adult neurons need to survive for the lifetime of the organism, and their premature death can cause irreversible functional deficits. The default apoptotic pathway is shut down when development is complete, and consequently growth factors are no longer required to prevent death. To protect against accidental apoptotic cell death, anti-apoptotic mechanisms are activated in mature neurons i...

From the September 2004 issue of The Monitor on Psychology comes this brief overview to a novel application of neuroscience: The baggage screener's brain scan The emerging field of neuroergonomics seeks to improve work safety and make everyday tasks, like driving, safer. BY CHARLOTTE HUFF Imagine if employers monitored the performance of air traffic controllers and baggage screeners not just for mistakes, but--through on-the-job brain monitoring--for insights into their brain functioning. The idea: Anticipate cognitive decline or fatigue in the workers to prevent safety problems. A group of psychologists, neurologists and other medical professionals is pursuing such a vision of improved worker functioning in an increasingly high-tech world through a melding of neuroscience and ergonomics. Through research in the area, they hope to better understand and improve the brain's functioning at work. The results could be far ranging, from altering tr...

The current issue of the journal, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry , contains an excellent review of the state of contemporary structural uses of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Here is the reference and abstract for this recommended review: Symms M, Jager HR, Schmierer K, Yousry TA. A review of structural magnetic resonance neuroimaging. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2004 Sep;75(9):1235-44. Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, Institute of Neurology, London, UK. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is often divided into structural MRI and functional MRI (fMRI). The former is a widely used imaging technique in research as well as in clinical practice. This review describes the more important developments in structural MRI in recent years, including high resolution imaging, T2 relaxation measurement, T2*-weighted imaging, T1 relaxation measurement, magnetisation transfer imaging, and diffusion imaging. The principles underlying these techniques...