BrainBlog

From Pharmalot blog, a good read about the Amyvid approval decision: Should FDA Have Approved Lilly Alzheimer’s Agent? Pharmalot By Ed Silverman April 9th, 2012 // 11:23 am Read the full blog post

Today's recommended reading deals with a very important issue in neuropsychological assessment: Loring DW, & Bauer RM. Testing the limits: cautions and concerns regarding the new Wechsler IQ and Memory scales. Neurology , 2010, 74(8), 685-690. Department of Neurology, Emory University, 101 Woodruff Circle, Suite 6000, Atlanta, GA, USA. 30322 The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) are 2 of the most common psychological tests used in clinical care and research in neurology. Newly revised versions of both instruments (WAIS-IV and WMS-IV) have recently been published and are increasingly being adopted by the neuropsychology community. There have been significant changes in the structure and content of both scales, leading to the potential for inaccurate patient classification if algorithms developed using their predecessors are employed. There are presently insufficient clinical data in neurologic populations to insure their appropriate ap...

From The Guardian : Girl, two, dies after swine flu misdiagnosis Child with possible meningitis was 'failed by system' say parents Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk Saturday 8 August 2009 01.08 BST [snippet] The parents of a two-year-old girl thought to have died from meningitis after they were told she was suffering from swine flu said yesterday that she had been "failed by the system". Georgia Keeling, from Norwich, died after being rushed to hospital on Tuesday. Her parents, Paul Sewell, 21, and Tasha Keeling, 22, said they contacted health services, including NHS Direct, the swine flu helpline and the emergency services, five times after their daughter first developed a temperature on Saturday. The couple said that by Tuesday she had also developed a rash, bruising and had been sick, but their concerns that she might have meningitis were ignored. They said that on two occasions they were told Georgia did not need to be admitted to hospital and after one 999 call, a param...

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...

Polanczyk G, de Lima MS, Horta BL, Biederman J, & Rohde LA. The Worldwide Prevalence of ADHD: A Systematic Review and Metaregression Analysis . American Journal of Psychiatry. 2007 Jun; 164(6): 942-948. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Division, Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil 90035-003. OBJECTIVE: The worldwide prevalence estimates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)/hyperkinetic disorder (HD) are highly heterogeneous. Presently, the reasons for this discrepancy remain poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to determine the possible causes of the varied worldwide estimates of the disorder and to compute its worldwide-pooled prevalence. METHOD: The authors searched MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases from January 1978 to December 2005 and reviewed textbooks and reference lists of the studies selected. Authors of relevant articles from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the M...