BrainBlog

An nice feature article in today's New York Times : Scientists Want to Find Alzheimer’s Before a Mind Fails By DENISE GRADY The New York Times Published: December 26, 2007 [ ... Read the full article ... ]

From sfgate.com and The San Francisco Chronicle , continued penetration of pop neuropsychology into everyday life: 'Brain gym' may exorcise Boomers' fears about aging Heidi Benson, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, December 13, 2007 Marathon-happy Baby Boomers, those 78 million Americans born from 1946 to '64, were the first generation to make a religion of physical fitness. Now, they are investing time and money to maintain what's above their six-pack abs and rippling biceps: their brains. "People are living longer, and they want their brains to keep up with their bodies," said Lisa Schoonerman, who is on top of the trend. She and her life partner, Jan Zivic, have opened a "brain gym," called vibrantBrains, on Sacramento Street in San Francisco. "Studies show that regular mental workouts are WD-40 for the brain," Schoonerman said. "It's preventative maintenance." [ ... Read the full article ... ]

Sarah Polley has won another award for her movie: From The Vancouver Sun : Polley wins N.Y. film critics award CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley has won the New York Film Critics Circle's best first film award for her directorial debut Away From Her , an adaptation of Alice Munro's short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain . Academy award-winning actress Julie Christie took the best actress award for her performance in Polley's film as a woman suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's disease. © The Vancouver Sun 2007 [ ... Read the full article ... ]

The New York Times continues its coverage of cognitive agility with a column today by Jane Brody discussing different cognitive and physical ways to promote a fit mind: Mental Reserves Keep Brains Agile by Jane E. Brody The New York Times 11 December 2007 [ ... Read the full column ... ]

Tomorrow's Sunday New York Times Magazine is its annual new ideas of the past year issue. Among the many shiny ideas presented is telephone screening for dementia: Alzheimer’s Telephone Screening By RON FEEMSTER The New York Times Published: December 9, 2007 This year, researchers completed work on a 50-question telephone quiz to help them identify Alzheimer’s patients long before they exhibit typical symptoms. Such a quiz may soon become part of regular medical care. This new tool measures what the researchers call “cognitive vital signs” like short-term memory loss, which is the most important early sign of Alzheimer’s, and detects declines in everyday abilities like using a telephone, preparing meals or managing finances. The quiz also picks up behavioral warning signs including apathy, irritability and depression. “If somebody is failing these cognitive tests, they already have the characteristics of the disease,” says Jeffrey Cummings, director of the Alzheimer Disease Center...

A short piece in today's Washington Post about the potential problems and potential benefits of broad screenings for dementia of Alzheimer's disease in the general population of aging persons: To Screen, or Not to Screen Experts Debate Mass Testing For Alzheimer's Disease By Alicia Ault Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, December 4, 2007; Page HE01 [ ... Read the full article ... ]

Meador KJ, Gevins A, Loring DW, McEvoy LK, Ray PG, Smith ME, Motamedi GK, Evans BM, & Baum C. Neuropsychological and neurophysiologic effects of carbamazepine and levetiracetam. Neurology. 2007 Nov 27; 69(22): 2076-2084. Department of Neurology, University of Florida, McKnight Brain Institute (L3-100), 100 South Newell Drive, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA. BACKGROUND: The relative effects of levetiracetam (LEV) and carbamazepine (CBZ) on cognitive and neurophysiologic measures are uncertain. METHODS: The effects of LEV and CBZ were compared in healthy adults using a randomized, double-blind, two-period crossover design. Outcome measures included 11 standard neuropsychological tests and the score from a cognitive-neurophysiologic test of attention and memory. Evaluations were conducted at screening, baseline pre-drug treatment, end of each maintenance phase (4 weeks), and end of each washout period after drug treatment. RESULTS: A total of 28 adults (17 women) with mean age of 33 ye...

From the American Psychological Association: GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Do you want to take charge of your career? Do you need financial support for graduate school or postdoctoral studies? Are you interested in ethnic minority issues? Then the Minority Fellowship Program is for you! The Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) offers the following fellowships The Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (MHSAS) Fellowship is aimed at those pursuing doctoral degrees in clinical, counseling, and school psychology, or other mental health services areas. This program is primarily for individuals who want to deliver services. The MHSAS Postdoctoral Fellowship is aimed at early career doctoral recipients who are interested in developing a career in mental health service delivery, policy, or services-related research. The Diversity Program in Neuroscience Fellowship is geared to those pursuing careers in neuroscience. Predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships ...

From the Radio Iowa website: Task force seeks public input on Alzheimer's disease Monday, November 26, 2007, 8:46 AM By Pat Curtis "A task force in Iowa that's looking for ways to improve services to Alzheimer's patients is asking for your help. John McCalley, director of the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs , says all Iowans are invited to take an on-line survey. He says the survey is mainly designed for Alzheimer's patients and their family members or care givers. McCalley, who also chairs the 17-member Alzheimer's disease Task Force, says the state's current services to dementia patients are somewhat uncoordinated. He says funding is provided to Area Agencies on Aging across the state, but those services face limited funding, especially in rural areas. An estimated 65,000 Iowans have Alzheimer's disease and that number is expected to grow as Iowa's population ages. McCalley says the survey only takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. He says the ques...

Love in the Time of Dementia By KATE ZERNIKE Published: November 18, 2007 The New York Times Kudos to the headline writer for the reference to Love in the Time of Cholera , the wonderful book, which after twenty years has now been released as a movie. Kudos also to Kate Zernike for this wonderful first line to her piece in today's Times : "So this, in the end, is what love is." [ ... Read the full piece ... ] Away from Her .

Pattyn N, Neyt X, Henderickx D, & Soetens E. Psychophysiological investigation of vigilance decrement: Boredom or cognitive fatigue? Physiology and Behavior. 2007 Oct 3; [Epub ahead of print.] Department of Cognitive & Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan, 2, 1050 Brussel, Belgium; Department of Behavioral Sciences, Royal Military Academy, Renaissancelaan, 30, 1000 Brussel, Belgium. The vigilance decrement has been described as a slowing in reaction times or an increase in error rates as an effect of time-on-task during tedious monitoring tasks. This decrement has been alternatively ascribed to either withdrawal of the supervisory attentional system, due to underarousal caused by the insufficient workload, or to a decreased attentional capacity and thus the impossibility to sustain mental effort. Furthermore, it has previously been reported that controlled processing is the locus of the vigilance decrement. This study aimed at answering three questions...

A press release from the NIH : Scientists Zero in on the Cellular Machinery that Enables Neurons to Fire If you ever had a set of Micronauts — toy robots with removable body parts — you probably had fun swapping their heads, imagining how it would affect their behavior. Scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health have been performing similar experiments on ion channels — pores in our nerve cells — to sort out the channels' key functional parts. In the November 15 issue of Nature , one group of researchers shows that a part of ion channels called the paddle is uniquely transplantable between different channels. Writing in the same issue, another group exploited this property to probe the three-dimensional structure of ion channels on an atomic scale. "The effects of many toxins and therapeutic drugs, as well as some diseases, can be wholly explained by changes in ion channel function," says Story Landis, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Neurologic...

Julien Temple's new documentary about Joe Strummer, The Future is Unwritten , opened a couple of weeks ago at the IFC off 4th Street in Manhattan. An excellent movie about an extraordinary musician! Check it out when it comes to your city.

Barrera A, McKenna PJ, & Berrios GE. Two new scales of formal thought disorder in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research. 2007 Nov 6; [Epub ahead of print] Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX3 7JX, UK. Information provided by patients and respective carers may help to understand formal thought disorder (FTD) in schizophrenia. Two scales, one for patients (FTD-patient) and one for carers (FTD-carer), were constructed to assess pragmatics, cognitive, paralinguistic, and non-verbal aspects of communication. In the first scale the patients themselves assess their verbal communication; in the second scale the carer assesses the speech of the respective patient. Both scales exhibited internal reliability and evidence of good test-retest reliability. Higher total scores on both scales (FTD-patient and FTD-carer) were significantly associated with positive FTD, but not with negative FTD. Principal component analysis of the scales yielded a multidimensional structure. It is suggested that FTD in s...

From the excellent blog, MedGadgets , a post about MRI dynamic computer modelling for neurosurgical interventions: link .

Carl Zimmer has a piece in tomorrow's New York Times about swarm intelligence. Read Carl's blog The Loom at this link . From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm Carl Zimmer 13 November 2007 The New York Times If you have ever observed ants marching in and out of a nest, you might have been reminded of a highway buzzing with traffic. To Iain D. Couzin, such a comparison is a cruel insult — to the ants. Americans spend a 3.7 billion hours a year in congested traffic. But you will never see ants stuck in gridlock. Army ants, which Dr. Couzin has spent much time observing in Panama, are particularly good at moving in swarms. If they have to travel over a depression in the ground, they erect bridges so that they can proceed as quickly as possible. “They build the bridges with their living bodies,” said Dr. Couzin, a mathematical biologist at Princeton University and the University of Oxford. “They build them up if they’re required, and they dissolve if they’re not being used.” T...

This looks like an interesting article that I've added to my list of pubs to read: Schiff ND & Fins JJ. Deep brain stimulation and cognition: moving from animal to patient. Current Opinions in Neurology . 2007 Dec; 20(6): 638-642. Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University , New York, New York, USA. PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Brain electrical stimulation has been proposed as a strategy to improve chronically impaired cognitive function. This brief review places a small number of recent studies into a broader historical context and identifies important challenges for further development of this area of research. RECENT FINDINGS: Behavioral improvements following severe brain injury with central thalamic deep brain stimulation were observed in experimental studies conducted in rodents and a report on a single human. These findings suggest that this technique warrants further study as a method to modulate cognitive function in the setting of acq...

An excellent op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the value of exercise - of the physical variety - in mental gymnastics. A Risser suggestion to supplement the intent of the opinion writers: get out there and walk around, but take a camera with you - not only do you get the physical exercise, but you challenge yourself cognitively (and may well get some framable results!) Exercise on the Brain By SANDRA AAMODT and SAM WANG Published: November 8, 2007 [snip] How might exercise help the brain? In people, fitness training slows the age-related shrinkage of the frontal cortex, which is important for executive function. In rodents, exercise increases the number of capillaries in the brain, which should improve blood flow, and therefore the availability of energy, to neurons. Exercise may also help the brain by improving cardiovascular health, preventing heart attacks and strokes that can cause brain damage. Finally, exercise causes the release of growth factors, proteins that in...

If you are a student of clinical neuropsychology at either an undergraduate or graduate level and live in the New York region but do not know very much about Arthur Benton and his contributions to this field of our's, you owe it to yourself to consider attending this talk in late November! The New York Neuropsychology Group Presents The Arthur L. Benton Annual Lecture Pioneers of Neuropsychology: An Insider's Guide to Arthur Benton Kerry Hamsher, Ph.D., ABPP-CN Tuesday, November 27, 2007 7 - 8 PM Refreshments to Follow FREE for NYNG Members $10 for Non NYNG Members FREE FOR ALL STUDENTS! Stony Brook Manhattan 110 East 28th Street (Between Park Ave South & Lexington Ave) New York, NY This year, the Annual New York Neuropsychology Group's Distinguished Speaker series is renamed in honor of the late Dr. Arthur L. Benton, a giant in the field of neuropsychology. Dr. Benton was the first speaker in this annual lecture series when it was initiated in 1986. We are pleased that...

From the Newsweek website: Make Your Bed, Save Your Brain The author of a new study says conscientious people may have less risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. By Karen Springen | Newsweek Web Exclusive Oct 1, 2007 | Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Oct 2, 2007 An interview with neuropsychologist Robert Wilson about a recent study he and colleagues completed: [snip] A new study, appearing this month in the Archives of General Psychiatry, suggests that being conscientious—hardworking, goal-oriented, dependable—may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's. Researchers studied 997 older Catholic priests, nuns and monks (average age: 75) who did not have dementia when the study began in 1994. The subjects rated themselves on a "conscientiousness scale," responding to such questions as "I am a productive person who always gets the job done." Over the 12 years of the study, 176 participants developed Alzheimer's, and they tended to be individuals who were less con...

From today's Houston Chronicle : Harris County hopes blacks will seek help for Alzheimer's Studies suggest more suffer brain disease than whites, but it is often unreported By LESLIE CASIMIR Oct. 15, 2007, 12:22AM Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle [snip] Officials from the Harris County Area Agency on Aging hope to highlight this issue and stop the cycle of denial and silence. Last week, health officials released The Book of Alzheimer's for African-American Churches , which explains Alzheimer's and the crisis enveloping the community. About 20,000 copies will be distributed in the Houston area, county officials said. The book is filled with local voices that explain the basic facts of the disease. It also offers practical advice on how loved ones should help the afflicted and seek outside support. County officials say they hope that worshippers will trust and embrace the information. "African-Americans appear less likely to request help and use community resources t...

Howard RJ, Juszczak E, Ballard CG, Bentham P, Brown RG, Bullock R, Burns AS, Holmes C, Jacoby R, Johnson T, Knapp M, Lindesay J, O'Brien JT, Wilcock G, Katona C, Jones RW, DeCesare J, Rodger M; CALM-AD Trial Group. Donepezil for the treatment of agitation in Alzheimer's disease. New England Journal of Medicine. 2007 Oct 4; 357(14): 1382-1392. Medical Research Council Neurogeneration Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, United Kingdom. BACKGROUND: Agitation is a common and distressing symptom in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Cholinesterase inhibitors improve cognitive outcomes in such patients, but the benefits of these drugs for behavioral disturbances are unclear. METHODS: We randomly assigned 272 patients with Alzheimer's disease who had clinically significant agitation and no response to a brief psychosocial treatment program to receive 10 mg of donepezil per day (128 patients) or placebo (131 patients) for 12 weeks. The...

Townend E, Brady M, McLaughlan K. A Systematic Evaluation of the Adaptation of Depression Diagnostic Methods for Stroke Survivors Who Have Aphasia. Stroke. 2007 Oct 11; [Epub ahead of print] From the NMAHP Research Unit, Buchannan House, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK; and the NHS Grampian, Department of Speech and Language Therapy, Spynie Hospital, Morayshire, UK. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: One in 3 stroke survivors has aphasia (impaired language comprehension and expressive abilities). Conventionally, depression diagnosis uses language-based methods. We aimed to systematically review methods that have been used to diagnose depression and adaptations to these methods intended for people with aphasia. METHODS: We systematically reviewed stroke studies (to January 2006) that included a depression diagnosis and individuals with aphasia. We extracted data related to depression diagnostic methods used for individuals with/without aphasia. We sought clarification from authors when require...

Silent Minds What scanning techniques are revealing about vegetative patients. by Jerome Groopman 15 October 2007 The New Yorker [ ... Read the piece ... ]

From the Nobel Assemble press release: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2007 jointly to Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies for their discoveries of "principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells" Summary This year's Nobel Laureates have made a series of ground-breaking discoveries concerning embryonic stem cells and DNA recombination in mammals. Their discoveries led to the creation of an immensely powerful technology referred to as gene targeting in mice. It is now being applied to virtually all areas of biomedicine – from basic research to the development of new therapies. Gene targeting is often used to inactivate single genes. Such gene "knockout" experiments have elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease. To date, more than ten thousand mouse gen...

The 61st annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) will take place in Philadelphia, from the 30th of November through the 5th of December. Details about the meeting can be found on the meeting webpage of the AES website.

Sarah Polley's movie won a Canadian film award this weekend: From the CBC : Polley's film big winner at Director's Guild Awards Last Updated: Sunday, September 30, 2007 | 9:38 AM ET The Canadian Press Sarah Polley's poignant Away From Her was the big winner at the 2007 Directors Guild of Canada Awards on Saturday. The film was honoured as best picture, and Polley was named best director; her husband, David Wharnsby, won the prize for best picture editing. The critically acclaimed movie chronicles the intrusion of Alzheimer's disease into the lives of an aging couple, played by Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie. [ ... Read the full article ... ] Read my earlier post about this movie here .

Scientific American has created a courtesy weekly podcast to highlight research about the brain and behavior. The podcast can be accessed at this webpage: Scientific American webpage . Not a bad way to spend a minute! Which, by the way, reminds me to mention that if you are in Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania still has several of its outdoors 60-second lectures remaining over the next few weeks, which are always fun to attend!

Available in a .pdf document from the "What's New" page of the OIG website here: Link for OIG webpage .

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a feature article about neuroscientist Donald Stein and his career exploring facets of recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI): One Doctor's Lonely Quest To Heal Brain Injury After 40 Years, Skeptics Back Hormone Therapy; Experiments in a Trailer By THOMAS M. BURTON September 26, 2007; Page A1 [snip] Dr. Stein still wanted to figure out why those brain-injured rats seemed to recover. But he says he concluded that he wouldn't win tenure if he pursued the question. In 1966, with a wife and young child to support, he left MIT to take a job as a psychology professor and director of the brain-research lab at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. His growing interest in the possibility of recovery from brain injury put him in a tiny minority. Most neurologists at the time still agreed with Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal , who wrote in 1913, "In the adult brain, nervous pathways are fixed and immutable. Everything may die, nothin...

From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release on the 26th: Scientists Suggest New Pathway Causing Cell Death in Dementia Scientists have discovered a link between a mutated gene and a protein found in dead brain cells of people who suffer from a form of dementia and other neurological disorders. The finding, reported in the Sep. 26, 2007, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience , demonstrates for the first time a pathological pathway that ultimately results in cell death related to frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The discovery could eventually play a role in the design of new drug therapies. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Leonard Petrucelli, Ph.D., and Dennis W. Dickson, M.D, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., led the international team of scientists in the study supported by the Mayo Clinic Foundation. The study, in ce...

Diamond EL, Miller S, Dickerson BC, Atri A, Depeau K, Fenstermacher E, Pihlajamäki M, Celone K, Salisbury S, Gregas M, Rentz D, & Sperling RA. Relationship of fMRI activation to clinical trial memory measures in Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2007 Sep 25; 69(13): 1331-1341. Memory Disorders Unit, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 221 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115 BACKGROUND: Functional MRI (fMRI) has shown promise as a tool to characterize altered brain function in Alzheimer disease (AD) and for use in proof of concept clinical trials. FMRI studies of subjects with AD have demonstrated altered hippocampal and neocortical activation while encoding novel stimuli compared to older controls. However, the relationship between fMRI activation and performance on standardized clinical trial memory measures has not been fully investigated. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether patterns of activation during an associative-memory fMRI paradigm correlate with performance on memory measures used in A...

Congratulations to Yoky Matsuoka for becoming a MacArthur Fellow. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Read about her work in rehabilitation neurorobotics .

From Australia's National Nine News: Alzheimer's struggle brought to screen Friday Sep 21 08:19 AEST At just 28 years of age, Canadian director Sarah Polley has made a debut feature film that directors twice her age and experience would be proud of. Also a talented actress, she is best known to Australian audiences for her acting roles as a supermarket checkout chick in the 1999 crime thriller Go and a schoolgirl in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. For her directorial debut, Away From Her , Polley chose to tell the story of a couple in their 60s who are dealing with Alzheimer's disease. It is hardly a film you would expect a 20-something film-maker to produce. The fact that she convinced Oscar winners Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis to be part of the movie is even more impressive. "During rehearsals, all of a sudden it dawned on me that I was directing people who were twice my age, and who had a good deal more experience than I did, and who were actors that ...

From the current issue of The New Yorker : The Abyss Music and amnesia by Oliver Sacks September 24, 2007 The experience of Clive Wearing and his spouse, Deborah. [ ... Read the article ... ]

van de Sandt-Koenderman WM, Wiegers J, Wielaert SM, Duivenvoorden HJ, & Ribbers GM. A computerised communication aid in severe aphasia: An exploratory study. Disability and Rehabilitation. 2007 Apr 30;:1-9 [Epub ahead of print]. Rijndam Rehabilitation Center, Rotterdam. Purpose. To investigate the efficacy of TouchSpeak (TS) , a handheld computerised communication aid for aphasia. Method. A pre-post one-group design was used with a referred sample of 34 patients with a severe aphasia and a need for alternative and augmentative communication (AAC). The participants were trained to use TS in two self-chosen communicative situations. The ability to navigate the hierarchical vocabulary and overall communicative ability were assessed. Participants rated their communicative success with and without TS. Three years after completion of the training, participants were interviewed about their present use of TS. Results. In total, 76% used TS outside the clinic in two trained communicative ...

This weekend I crack open the files on my next book and begin work on it, which I plan to complete by the end of 2008. This will be a weekend and vacation-time effort, which is the only way I can fit it in. I've co-authored three academic books in the past and written a number of general-readership articles, but this will be my first venture into a book-length work written for a more general audience. The closest I've come to this in the past was a monograph (monograph:book as novella: novel) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) waaaay back in 1984, so I'm looking forward to the task! The topic is on my area of expertise: the neuropsychological assessment of persons and what we can learn from these tests about the brain-behavior functioning of individuals.

Ackermann H, Mathiak K, & Riecker A. The contribution of the cerebellum to speech production and speech perception: Clinical and functional imaging data. Cerebellum. 2007; 6(3): 202-13. Department of General Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen. A classical tenet of clinical neurology proposes that cerebellar disorders may give rise to speech motor disorders (ataxic dysarthria), but spare perceptual and cognitive aspects of verbal communication. During the past two decades, however, a variety of higher-order deficits of speech production, e.g., more or less exclusive agrammatism, amnesic or transcortical motor aphasia, have been noted in patients with vascular cerebellar lesions, and transient mutism following resection of posterior fossa tumors in children may develop into similar constellations. Perfusion studies provided evidence for cerebello-cerebral diaschisis as a possible pathomechanism in these instances. Tight functional conne...

Nathan PC, Patel SK, Dilley K, Goldsby R, Harvey J, Jacobsen C, Kadan-Lottick N, McKinley K, Millham AK, Moore I, Okcu MF, Woodman CL, Brouwers P, Armstrong FD; Children's Oncology Group Long-term Follow-up Guidelines Task Force on Neurocognitive/Behavioral Complications After Childhood Cancer. Guidelines for identification of, advocacy for, and intervention in neurocognitive problems in survivors of childhood cancer: A report from the Children's Oncology Group. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine . 2007 Aug; 161(8): 798-806. Division of Haematology/Oncology, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada. With modern therapies and supportive care, survival of childhood cancer has increased considerably. Patients who have survived cancers involving the central nervous system or who have received therapy toxic to the developing brain are at risk of long-term neurocognitive sequelae. Negative outcomes are observed most frequently in su...

The Healthy Brain Initiative website. From the website: [snip] "The lack of cognitive health – from mild cognitive decline to dementia—can have profound implications for an individual’s health and well-being. Older adults and others experiencing cognitive decline may be unable to care for themselves or to conduct necessary activities of daily living, such as meal preparation and money management. Limitations in the ability to effectively manage medications and existing medical conditions are of particular concern when an individual is experiencing cognitive decline or dementia. If cognitive decline could be prevented or better treated, lives of many older adults could be improved. "Opportunities for maintaining cognitive health are growing as public health professionals gain a better understanding of risk factors for cognitive decline. The public health community should embrace cognitive health as a priority, invest in its promotion, and enhance our ability to move scientifi...

BrainBlog turns three years old today.

Vogels RL, Oosterman JM, van Harten B, Scheltens P, van der Flier WM, Schroeder-Tanka JM, & Weinstein HC. Profile of Cognitive Impairment in Chronic Heart Failure. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 2007 Aug 28; [Epub ahead of print]. Department of Neurology, Sint Lucas-Andreas Hospital , Amsterdam, The Netherlands. OBJECTIVES: To determine the frequency and pattern of cognitive dysfunction in outpatients with chronic congestive heart failure (CHF) and to identify the corresponding demographic and clinical correlates. DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Outpatient clinic in a community hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty-two outpatients with CHF, 53 controls diagnosed with cardiovascular disease uncomplicated by CHF (cardiac controls), and 42 healthy controls were investigated. MEASUREMENTS: Neuropsychological assessment included tests of mental speed, executive function, memory, language, and visuospatial function. Composite z-scores for five cognitive domains and mean z-sco...

Interesting piece in today's New York Times about writers taking promotional book "tours" via blogs: The Author Will Take Q.’s Now By KARA JESELLA Published: September 2, 2007 [snip] Bloggers have written about books since, well, the beginning of blogging. But a blog book tour usually requires an author or publicist to take the initiative, reaching out to bloggers as if they were booksellers and asking them to be the host for a writer’s online visit. Sometimes bloggers invite authors on their own. In an age of budget-conscious publishers and readers who are as likely to discover books from a Google search as from browsing at a bookstore, the blog book tour makes sense. Although a few high-profile authors have had their books sent to bloggers — James Patterson recently promoted a young-adult book this way — most of the authors are lesser-known and less likely to be reviewed in the mainstream press. [snip] [ Read the full article ... ]

From yesterday's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel : Lost in cancer's fog 'Chemobrain' impairs thinking, memory after chemotherapy; anecdotal brain effects are just starting to get serious study By JOHN FAUBER 01 September 2007 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel [snip] In two small groups of testicular and breast cancer patients, between 60% and 70% of the patients experienced some cognitive decline that was tied to the onset of their chemotherapy, said Christina Meyers, a professor and chief of neuropsychology at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "It's subtle," she said. "We are not talking about dementia or anything grossly obvious." Within one year, about half of the patients were back to their pretreatment levels of cognitive ability, Meyers said. [snip] [ ... Read the full article ... ]

From The New York Times : Oliver Sacks Joins Columbia Faculty By MOTOKO RICH September 1, 2007 Attracted by his breadth of interests, ranging from schizophrenia to music, Columbia University has appointed Oliver Sacks , the neurologist and writer, as its first Columbia artist, a newly created designation. Beginning next week, Dr. Sacks, who has been a clinical professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx for the past 42 years, is leaving to become a professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, a post he will occupy in addition to the new artist position. The new appointment will allow Dr. Sacks , the author of 10 books and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker , to range freely across Columbia’s departments, teaching, giving public lectures, conducting seminars, seeing patients and collaborating with other faculty members. Many of the details of his appointment have yet to be work...

Zack Lynch has posted a message on his Brain Waves blog about his NIO's new job-postings page. Please read the posting for an introduction and take a look at the cool new board: Brain Waves posting Neurotech Job Board

From the Associated Press, a report of curious cooperative behavior ... or merely a fluke: Spiders Create Giant Web By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS August 30, 2007 Filed at 7:02 a.m. ET WILLS POINT, Texas (AP) -- Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it. ''At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland,'' said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. ''Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.'' Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be t...

Belleville S, Chertkow H, & Gauthier S. Working memory and control of attention in persons with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. Neuropsychology. 2007 Jul; 21(4): 458-469. Research CenterInstitut Universitaire de Geriatrie de Montreal, Montreal, PQ, Canada The goal of the present study was to assess 3 attentional control processes--divided attention, manipulation capacities, and inhibition--in persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Manipulation capacities were tested by comparing immediate serial recall with alphabetical-order recall of words. Divided attention was tested with the Brown-Peterson procedure, in which participants divide their attention between simple addition tasks and consonant trigrams over delays. Inhibition was tested with the Hayling procedure, in which participants complete sentences with words irrelevant to their context. Persons with AD showed severe impairment on the 3 attentional cont...

While travelling on neuropsych business over the past week, I've been totally enjoying the new collaboration between Dana Press and Dr. Floyd Bloom - an edited book of feature articles from Scientific American . The book contains 21 articles of the many that have appeared in the magazine from 1999 onward. My favorite is the last one, "The Quest for a Smart Pill," by Stephen Hall. I may be mistaken, but I believe Hall has also written on this topic for the journal, Science . It deals with memory- and other cognitive-function- enhancing drugs currently under development by a number of biotech companies and some of the ethical issues involved in this domain. Good reads on the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders and computer-brain interfaces also are included. Articles by Antonio Damasio, Eric Kandel, and Fred Gage are representative of some of the neuroscientific leaders found in the book. Science journalist Carl Zimmer is represented, as well. List price of $25.00, The Be...

From today's New York Times : Mind Over Matter, With a Machine’s Help By JASON PONTIN Published: August 26, 2007 [snip] Omneuron is one of a number of new companies that are commercializing a brain-scanning technology called real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Using large scanners to measure blood flow to different parts of the brain, the technology makes the brain’s activity visible by revealing which of its parts are busiest when we perform different tasks. While fMRI dates back to the early 1990s, hitherto it has been used mainly by doctors in hospitals to make diagnoses. The commercialization of brain scanning is a recent development, spurred by the refinement of the technology. Omneuron , which Dr. deCharms founded in 2001 and whose research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, uses fMRI to teach people how to play with their own heads. Other entrepreneurs are working on ways to deploy fMRI as a lie detector, a tool for conducting market...

Reimer B, D'Ambrosio LA, Coughlin JF, Fried R, & Biederman J. Task-induced fatigue and collisions in adult drivers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Traffic Inj Prev. 2007 Sep; 8(3): 290-299. AgeLab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Objective. This study compares collision involvement between adult drivers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and control participants in a simulation experiment designed to enhance the effects of fatigue. Because the effects of ADHD include difficulties in maintaining attention, drivers with ADHD were hypothesized to be more susceptible to the effects of fatigue while driving. Methods. Data are drawn from a validated driving simulation study, portions of which were focused on enhancing the effects of fatigue. The simulator data are supplemented with written questionnaire data. Drivers with ADHD were compared with controls. Results. The self-report data indicated that drivers with...

An FDA press release from yesterday: FDA Approves Risperdal for Two Psychiatric Conditions in Children and Adolescents The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Risperdal (risperidone) for the treatment of schizophrenia in adolescents, ages 13 to 17, and for the short-term treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar I disorder in children and adolescents ages 10 to 17. This is the first FDA approval of an atypical antipsychotic drug to treat either disorder in these age groups. Until now, there has been no FDA-approved drug for the treatment of schizophrenia for pediatric use and only lithium is approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder in adolescents ages 12 and up. “The pediatric studies of Risperdal provided an opportunity to assess the effectiveness, proper dose, and safety of using this product in the pediatric population,” said Dianne Murphy, M.D., director of FDA’s Office of Pediatric Therapeutics. “These data have permitted the identification of the effectiv...

The archive from a conference held at MIT in May of what sounds and looks like an exceptional event: Access here .

From today's New York Times : Sleights of Mind By GEORGE JOHNSON Published: August 21, 2007 [ ... Read the article ... ]

From the BBC's website: HIV's double hit on brain cells HIV can trigger learning and memory deficits by launching a double attack on the brain, research shows. It was already known that a protein on the surface of the virus could kill off mature brain cells. But the latest study shows it also prevents the production of replacements by crippling cells with the potential to step in and take their place. The University of California at San Diego study appears in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The researchers hope their work, which was carried out on mice, will aid efforts to find new ways to combat HIV-associated dementia. Researcher Dr Marcus Kaul said: "It's a double hit to the brain. "The HIV protein both causes brain injury and prevents its repair." The success of antiretroviral therapies in keeping "viral load" down has helped to reduce the severity of HIV-associated dementia in recent years. However, the condition is becoming more common as people w...

From today's New York Times : Sniff Test May Signal Disorders’ Early Stages By ELIZABETH SVOBODA Published: August 14, 2007 [snip] The Sniff Magnitude Test, developed with the aid of a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, consists of a nasal tube called a cannula attached to a plastic container about the size and shape of a coffee thermos. Chemical vapors inside the canister are released through the tube, exposing subjects to a series of smells, some more objectionable than others. “People describe some of the smells as skunky or sewerlike,” said Jason Bailie, a University of Cincinnati graduate student working on the test. “There’s also one that smells like banana.” As patients take whiffs of each new fragrance, sensors in the thermos unit measure the negative pressure the inhalations produce. The size and intensity of these sniffs turn out to be important gauges of olfactory ability. After detecting a strong or disagreeable odor, people with a normal sense o...

From tomorrow's New York Times : The Beam of Light That Flips a Switch That Turns on the Brain By INGFEI CHEN Published: August 14, 2007 [snip] One of the newest, fastest strategies co-opts a photosensitive protein called channelrhodopsin-2 from pond scum to allow precise laser control of the altered cells on a millisecond timescale. That speed mimics the natural electrical chatterings of the brain, said Dr. Karl Deisseroth, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford. “We can start to sort of speak the language of the brain using optical excitation,” Dr. Deisseroth said. The brain’s functions “arise from the orchestrated participation of all the different cell types, like in a symphony,” he said. Laser stimulation can serve as a musical conductor, manipulating the various kinds of neurons in the brain to reveal which important roles they play. This light-switch technology promises to accelerate scientists’ efforts in mapping which clusters of the brain’s 100 billion neuro...

From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website, a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation : Virtual skull could lead to better crash helmets Last Updated: Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 8:57 AM ET Australian Broadcasting Corporation A sophisticated new computer-generated virtual skull could help researchers study evolution and design better crash helmets, says an Australian scientist. The virtual chimp skull was designed by Dr. Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales and colleagues from the University of Newcastle. "It's the most sophisticated model of a chimp skull ever made," said Wroe, a paleontologist with an interest in skull mechanics. [ ... Read the full article ... ]

Chaudhuri KR, Martinez-Martin P, Brown RG, Sethi K, Stocchi F, Odin P, Ondo W, Abe K, Macphee G, Macmahon D, Barone P, Rabey M, Forbes A, Breen K, Tluk S, Naidu Y, Olanow W, Williams AJ, Thomas S, Rye D, Tsuboi Y, Hand A, & Schapira AH. The metric properties of a novel non-motor symptoms scale for Parkinson's disease: Results from an international pilot study. Movement Disorders. 2007 Aug 2; [Epub ahead of print]. National Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence, Kings College Hospital, London, United Kingdom. Non-motor symptoms (NMS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) are common, significantly reduce quality of life and at present there is no validated clinical tool to assess the progress or potential response to treatment of NMS. A new 30-item scale for the assessment of NMS in PD (NMSS) was developed. NMSS contains nine dimensions: cardiovascular, sleep/fatigue, mood/cognition, perceptual problems, attention/memory, gastrointestinal, urinary, sexual function, and miscellany...

A big thank you to Zack Lynch of Brain Waves for posting about the availability online of a comprehensive neuropsychopharmacology textbook. Here is the link to Brain Waves , which links to the text: link . The text is a publication by and is available on the website of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), a professional society. Additionally, the ACNP is noted for the exceptional quality of its conferences.

The latest installment in a compelling feature series in The Seattle Times : Losing Betsy — A move nobody wanted By Marsha King The Seattle Times 05 August 2007 [snip] "I've always said I want to keep her as long as I can," Jeff said several weeks ago. "But I'm kind of reaching the end of my ability to do this stuff." Sooner than expected, that day arrived. Seven years ago, when she was 46, Betsy got a shocking diagnosis — early onset dementia — probably Alzheimer's disease. Since then, she's gone from forgetting how to fold laundry to forgetting who she is. On the morning of July 13, Jeff moved his wife to a state-licensed adult family home in Renton. Now 53, Betsy would be the youngest resident by 24 years. [snip] [ ... Read the full article ... ] Includes links to earlier reports in the series.

Mahlberg R, Walther S, Eichmann U, Tracik F, & Kunz D. Effects of rivastigmine on actigraphically monitored motor activity in severe agitation related to Alzheimer's disease: A placebo-controlled pilot study. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 2007 Jul-Aug; 45(1): 19-26. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Turmstr. 21, D-10559 Berlin, Germany. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) are effective in the treatment of cognitive symptoms in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Because the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) have also been attributed to central cholinergic deficits, we examined whether the AChEI rivastigmine can reduce motor activity as measured in a rater-independent manner by wrist actigraphy in agitated AD patients. A total of 20 consecutive AD inpatients (13 females, 7 males, 80.4+/-9.1 years, S.D.) were included from our geriatric psychiatry unit, all of whom were exhibitin...

From the current issue of Time : When Worry Hijacks The Brain Thursday, Aug. 02, 2007 By JEFFREY KLUGER [ ... To read the article, click here ... ]

A curious case report discussed in today's New York Times : Man Regains Speech After Brain Stimulation By BENEDICT CAREY Published: August 1, 2007 A 38-year-old man who spent more than five years in a mute, barely conscious state as a result of a severe head injury is now communicating regularly with family members and recovering his ability to move after having his brain stimulated with pulses of electric current, neuroscientists are reporting. [snip] The new report, which appears in the journal Nature , provides the first rigorous evidence that any procedure can initiate and sustain recovery in such a severely disabled person, years after the injury occurred. An estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Americans subsist in states of partial consciousness, and most are written off as beyond help. Doctors said it was not clear how many such patients would benefit from the treatment, in which two wire electrodes are implanted deep in the brain. The procedure also raises sticky ethical questions...

"Neeka's Backlog" is a blog written in Kiev by Veronica Khokhlova. Unfortunately, her topic over the past week or so has been the search for her father who had sustained a series of strokes and who wandered away from a family that was trying its best and, several days later, from a hospital that should have done better. The blog was a definitive voice during the Orange Revolution and becomes equally compelling in these entries. The narrative of these days is the clearest that I've ever read and should be read by any professional caring for individuals with dementia or related CNS disorders.

From a National Institutes of Health press release issued on the 29th: After a Decades-Long Search, Scientists Identify New Genetic Risk Factors for Multiple Sclerosis A pair of large-scale genetic studies supported by the National Institutes of Health has revealed two genes that influence the risk of getting multiple sclerosis (MS) — data sought since the discovery of the only other known MS susceptibility gene decades ago. The findings could shed new light on what causes MS — a puzzling mix of genes, environment and immunity — and on potential treatments for at least 350,000 Americans who have the disease. "These studies describe the first genes conclusively linked to MS in more than 20 years," said Ursula Utz, Ph.D., a program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of NIH. "This breakthrough was made possible through persistence, an elegant search strategy, and genomic data and techniques that were not available until ...