BrainBlog

The Charlie Rose show is airing episodes from Series 2 of its "Brain Series." Series 2 is a series of episodes that deal with brain disorders. Home page

From the Guardian : NHS warned of 'neurology timebomb' Call for 'neurology tsar' as growing numbers are diagnosed with Parkinson's, motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis The Guardian Tuesday 17 January 2012 Read full article

The annual conference of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) takes place from the 10th to the17th of April 2010, in Toronto. Conference homepage

Several days ago, the CDC released a report entitled, "Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, 2002-2006" - available as a .pdf (and .doc) download. Download the report

The conference homepage: American Epilepsy Society Conference

The Cardiff Neuroscience Centre Webpage Read about neuroscience research activities in and around Cardiff and their collaboration with Bristol via this virtual centre.

From The Guardian : First person: My condition means people always assume I'm drunk Jayne Wallace The Guardian Thursday 27 August 2009 Read the article

Available at BMC Neurology Proceedings of the 2009 Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration Conference Proceedings from Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration Conference Washington, DC, USA. 2–3 February 2009 Edited by Diana W Shineman and Howard M Fillit BMC Neurology Contents of Volume 9 Suppl 1 Click here for open access to contents of this issue

From a press release by the FDA: Sabril Approved by FDA to Treat Spasms in Infants and Epileptic Seizures Sabril (vigabatrin) Oral Solution has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat infantile spasms in children ages 1 month to 2 years. Sabril is the first drug in the United States approved to treat the disorder, characterized by a severe type of seizure that usually appears in the first year of life, typically between ages 4 months and 8 months. The disorder can be debilitating because of the frequency of difficult-to-control daily seizures. Sabril (vigabatrin) Tablets have been approved for adult use in combination with other medications to treat complex partial seizures that have not responded adequately to previous drug therapies. “Seizures can cause impaired nervous system function and reduced quality of life,” said Russell Katz, M.D., director of the Division of Neurology Products at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Infantile spasms i...

On Saturday, the 15th, from 1100 to 1200 hrs, plinther Laura Hickman of the One&Other art project in Trafalgar Square will be promoting Chiari Malformation awareness. The Chiari Center Foundation Chiari Malformation information page here and here [credits: Photo courtesy Laura Hickman}

I have a fun task to complete later today: Recommend to a client five new neuroscience books that have been published in 2009 to be purchased to "freshen up" their company library shelves.

An interesting feature article from the front page of yesterday's New York Times : After Injury, Fighting to Regain a Sense of Self By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times Published: August 9, 2009 "Scientists are investigating delusions caused by brain trauma for clues to one of the most confounding problems in brain science: identity." Read the full article

Mattsson N, Zetterberg H, Hansson O, Andreasen N, Parnetti L, Jonsson M, Herukka SK, van der Flier WM, Blankenstein MA, Ewers M, Rich K, Kaiser E, Verbeek M, Tsolaki M, Mulugeta E, Rosén E, Aarsland D, Visser PJ, Schröder J, Marcusson J, de Leon M, Hampel H, Scheltens P, Pirttilä T, Wallin A, Jönhagen ME, Minthon L, Winblad B, & Blennow K. (2009). CSF biomarkers and incipient Alzheimer disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment. JAMA, 302(4), 385-393. Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Department of Neurochemistry and Psychiatry, The Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Mölndal, Sweden. CONTEXT: Small single-center studies have shown that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers may be useful to identify incipient Alzheimer disease (AD) in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), but large-scale multicenter studies have not been conducted. OBJECTIVE: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of CSF beta-amyloid(1-42) (Abeta42), total tau protein (T-tau), a...

Lu PH, Edland SD, Teng E, Tingus K, Petersen RC, Cummings JL & Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Group. (2009) Donepezil delays progression to AD in MCI subjects with depressive symptoms. Neurology, 72(24): , 2115-2121. Departments of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the presence of depression predicts higher rate of progression to Alzheimer disease (AD) in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and whether donepezil treatment beneficially affect this relationship. METHODS: The study sample was composed of 756 participants with aMCI from the 3-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study drug trial of donepezil and vitamin E. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to assess depressive symptoms at baseline and participants were followed either to the end of study or to the primary endpoint of progression to probable or possible AD. RESULTS: Cox pr...

Edinburgh Neuroscience : "The mission of Edinburgh Neuroscience is to integrate basic and clinical research in order to drive the fundamental genetic, cellular, organ, systems and computational neuroscience underpinning pathogenesis into mechanistic understanding, future diagnostics and therapeutics of important diseases of the nervous system. We serve the interests of all members of the neuroscience community, encompassing and supported by the Research Centres and Institutes of the University of Edinburgh and its affiliates. Edinburgh Neuroscience is hosted by the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at The University of Edinburgh and currently consists of approximately 470 staff, 160 PhD students and 40 MSc students, working in 137 research laboratories." - from the website

Visit The Neuro Times at http://www.dictionaryofneurology.com/

From The New York Times , accounting of pediatric neurological complications from Texas: Read article [snippet] “The usefulness of this case report is that many doctors who deal with outpatient flu only may never have seen a case with neurological complications,” Dr. Pavia said. “It’s an important reminder that flu can present as seizures or as encephalitis.” [snippet]

de Jong LW, van der Hiele K, Veer IM, Houwing JJ, Westendorp RG, Bollen EL, de Bruin PW, Middelkoop HA, van Buchem MA, & van der Grond J. Strongly reduced volumes of putamen and thalamus in Alzheimer's disease: An MRI study. Brain. 2008 Nov 20. Department of Radiology, Section Neuropsychology of the Department of Neurology, Department of Medical Statistics, Department of Geriatrics and Department of Neurology of the Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. Atrophy is regarded a sensitive marker of neurodegenerative pathology. In addition to confirming the well-known presence of decreased global grey matter and hippocampal volumes in Alzheimer's disease, this study investigated whether deep grey matter structure also suffer degeneration in Alzheimer's disease, and whether such degeneration is associated with cognitive deterioration. In this cross-sectional correlation study, two groups were compared on volumes of seven subcortical regions: 70 memory...

From an NIH press release earlier today: Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) Study Fails To Show Benefit in Preventing Dementia in the Elderly The dietary supplement Ginkgo biloba was found to be ineffective in reducing the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in older people, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association1. Researchers led by Stephen T. DeKosky, M.D., formerly of the University of Pittsburgh, vice president and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, conducted the trial known as the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study at four clinical sites over the course of 8 years. GEM is the largest clinical trial ever to evaluate ginkgo's effect on the occurrence of dementia. This research was co-funded by five components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH): National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM); National Institute on Aging (NIA); National Heart, Lu...

Pratt LA, Weeks JD, & Goulding MR. Measures of cognitive functioning in the 1994-2000 Second Longitudinal Study of Aging . National Health Statistics Reports. 2008 Jul 7; (2): 1-15. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD 20782, USA. OBJECTIVES: This report describes in detail the measures of cognitive functioning administered in the Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA II) and proposes a three-category cognitive impairment variable for analysts' use that is derived from the individual measures. METHODS: LSOA II self-respondents completed an 11-question cognitive functioning measure based on the Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status (TICS) instrument. Proxy respondents answered nine questions drawn from the short Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE). Using cut points provided in the literature as a guide, a single three-level categorical...