BrainBlog

Northwestern University's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center has a helpful overview of PPA online here: PPA Handbook . - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From an NIH press release from earlier today: Study Links Progressive Aphasia Syndrome to Prion Gene Most people with a rare type of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA) have a specific combination of prion gene variants, a new study shows. The study is the first to link the prion protein gene to this disorder. It was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and appears in the December 2005 issue of the Annals of Neurology. The researchers, led by James A. Mastrianni, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Chicago , also looked at the prion protein gene in people with Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) and did not find any association with specific gene variants in those disorders. PPA is classified as a type of frontotemporal dementia because of the pattern of brain degenerat...

The N=1: Population of One blog discusses and points to an upcoming academic workshop about HCI and cognitive factors related to faces: Read the post . - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Csernansky JG, Wang L, Miller JP, Galvin JE, & Morris JC. Neuroanatomical predictors of response to donepezil therapy in patients with dementia. Archives of Neurology. 2005 Nov; 62(11): 1718-1722. Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, and Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA. BACKGROUND: Patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) respond variably to treatment with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether measures of hippocampal volume and shape predict the response to donepezil in patients with DAT. DESIGN: T1-weighted, magnetic resonance images were obtained from patients with DAT, who subsequently underwent treatment with donepezil. Brain-mapping algorithms were used to quantify hippocampal volume and shape, and growth curves were used to estimate clinical outcome. SETTING: A referral outpatient center specializing in treatment of dementia. PATIENTS: Thirty-seven patients with very mild or...

Henry JD, Beatty WW. Verbal fluency deficits in multiple sclerosis. Neuropsychologia. 2005 Nov 14; [Epub ahead of print] School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. A quantitative review of 35 studies with 3673 participants was conducted to estimate and compare the magnitude of deficits upon tests of phonemic and semantic fluency for participants with multiple sclerosis (MS) relative to healthy controls. Participants with MS were substantially but similarly impaired on tests of phonemic and semantic fluency. These deficits were larger than deficits on measures of verbal intelligence, confrontation naming and another widely used measure of executive functioning, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, but were of a comparable or smaller magnitude relative to deficits on the oral version of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT). This is consistent with other research suggesting that measures of verbal fluency and the SDMT may be amongst the most sensitive ne...

From the AP : Elan Shares Jump As Tysabri to Get Review By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 18, 2005 Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Shares in Irish drug maker Elan Corp. PLC jumped Friday after U.S. regulators announced they would accelerate their review of a key suspended drug, Tysabri. On the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin, Elan shares rose 4.4 percent to close at 9.24 euros ($10.81) amid renewed optimism about the multiple sclerosis-fighting drug. Elan is developing Tysabri in conjunction with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Biogen Idec Inc. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday night it had granted Tysabri ''priority review'' status, which means that a decision on whether the drug can return to the U.S. market will be made within six months instead of the standard 10. [ ... Read the full article ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscienc...

In the current issue of the British Medical Journal : Jennifer Glass, Krista L Lanctôt, Nathan Herrmann, Beth A Sproule, & Usoa E Busto. Sedative hypnotics in older people with insomnia: meta-analysis of risks and benefits. British Medical Journal ;  2005; 331: 1169. [doi:10.1136/bmj.38623.768588.47] [ ... Read the full article ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Boing Boing posts about and links to an NPR report about Howard Dully's story. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From a company press release: Neurognostics: Nets Its First Distributor 11/17/2005 Milwaukee, WI, November 17, 2005 - Neurognostics, Inc., a Wisconsin company specializing in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) products and services, announced today that it chose Specified Imaging, a Louisiana-based distributor of medical imaging products, as its first distributor of the MindState (TM) product line . [ ... Read the full press release ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Lutz MT & Helmstaedter C. EpiTrack: Tracking cognitive side effects of medication on attention and executive functions in patients with epilepsy. Epilepsy and Behavior, 2005 Oct 30; [Epub ahead of print]. Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. RATIONALE: Achievement of maximum seizure control with preservation or even improvement of patient's cognitive capabilities is the major aim of epilepsy therapy. EpiTrack is a brief screening tool for the tracking of cognitive side effects of antiepileptic drugs. Test selection was based on recent studies on the effects of topiramate on cognition and retrospective inspection of results from patients with antiepileptic drug (AED) side effects. METHODS: The 15-minute screening tool comprises six subtests: the Trail-Making Test (parts A and B), a test of response inhibition, digit span backward, written word fluency, and a maze test. These tests were standardized in 220 healthy subjects, 100 of whom were reevaluate...

Save a couple of steps and a little time in your lit searches by making use of the new RSS feed options on PubMed. Details are provided from the homepage . - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From The New York Times : Young, Assured and Playing Pharmacist to Friends By AMY HARMON Published: November 16, 2005 The New York Times [snip] For a sizable group of people in their 20's and 30's, deciding on their own what drugs to take - in particular, stimulants, antidepressants and other psychiatric medications - is becoming the norm. Confident of their abilities and often skeptical of psychiatrists' expertise, they choose to rely on their own research and each other's experience in treating problems like depression, fatigue, anxiety or a lack of concentration. A medical degree, in their view, is useful, but not essential, and certainly not sufficient. They trade unused prescription drugs, get medications without prescriptions from the Internet and, in some cases, lie to doctors to obtain medications that in their judgment they need. [ ... Read the full article ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From a Salk Institute for Biological Studies press release : Released: Fri 11-Nov-2005, 08:55 ET  Embargo expired: Mon 14-Nov-2005, 17:00 ET    3-D Structure of Alzheimer's Disease Filament Shows How It Zips Up Peptides Newswise — Researchers have solved the three dimensional structure of the long thread-like fibers that fill the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients. The structure reveals the proteins that make up the fibrils lock onto each other much like a zipper on a jacket. This advance, reported in the Nov. 14th early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), helps illuminate the molecular roots of Alzheimer's and possibly other degenerative diseases of the brain. “Now that we understand at an atomic level how these fibrils form, it might help researchers develop a biomarker test to diagnose Alzheimer's disease at an early stage, as well as drugs to treat it,” says the study's lead investigator, Salk Institute for Biological S...

A new neuroscience blog: Action Potential . Best wishes! - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

The November issue of The APA Monitor includes a short piece about a recent talk by Dr. Lynn Nadel discussing advances in research related to the hippocampus and memory: Why we can't remember when... The hippocampus's role in memory may help explain why we cannot remember our early childhood, and why stress affects our memory later in life. By LEA WINERMAN APA Monitor November 2005 Print version: page 36 [ ... Read the article ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Thank you, Mind Hacks , for listing this blog as among the set of essential websites for students. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain