BrainBlog

An interesting read. I always aimed for 6th-grade reading level myself, so it surprised me to read of this finding: Informed Consent Forms Target 11th Grade Readers By Ed Silverman Pharmalot December 12th, 2011 // 9:29 am Read the full blog post

From King's College London: Innovative Partnership for Pain Research 10 Mar 2010, PR 48/10 "King’s has partnered with Pfizer to create an open innovation laboratory for pain research. As part of the partnership, a small team of Pfizer scientists will be based at the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases to conduct research in pain biology." read the full article

A report from BusinessWeek from 27 August 2009: Drug, Biotech Research Spending Hangs Tough Overall U.S. corporate R&D spending is down 4% since the end of 2007, but some companies have chosen to buck the trend By Emily Thornton and Frederick Jespersen [snip] Corporate America's research spending shrank 4% overall, or $1.9 billion, from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of this year, according to data compiled by Capital IQ on 961 U.S. companies. But many health-care companies have boosted their research outlays. BusinessWeek sought out 25 companies that most aggressively increased their research budgets during the first six months of 2009. Thirteen members of the group, which collectively boosted its spending by $2 billion, were pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Only eight were high-tech outfits, such as Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT). [snip] Read the full article

Pharmafocus reported earlier in the week about a plan by Pfizer to roll out some social networking options for patients considering clinical-trial participation: Pfizer to develop online community to find new trials patients Monday , August 24, 2009 Read the report . The report indicates that Pfizer has teamed with Private Access in this product. I know I have been involved in co-hosting online communities for Alzheimer's disease and in oncology and such online communities can be very exciting for patients, caregivers, and scientists.

2nd Conference on Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) From the conference website: "Dear Colleague, "It is a great pleasure for us to invite you to attend the 2nd conference Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD), which will take place in Las Vegas on October 29-30, 2009. "This conference is co-organized by the Montpellier and Toulouse European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium (EADC) Centers and the Cleveland Clinic : Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. "The aims of the meeting are to bring together the current leaders in clinical trials in Alzheimer’s Disease to discuss new results, drugs in development, and future methodological issues (disease modifying, outcomes, biomarkers, health economics)." Full details available at the conference website: http://www.ctad.fr/01-presentation/presentation.asp

C-SPAN-3 is currently airing an earlier session by the subcommittee on aging on the topic of Alzheimer's Disease. All C-SPAN channels can be streamed online. Information about the program can be found here .

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Bethesda, MD http://www.nichd.nih.gov/ The Rose F. Kennedy University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Bronx, NY http://www.aecom.yu.edu/cerc/kennedy.htm

Mark Rosenzweig, pioneer in brain plasticity, learning and hearing, has died at 86 UCBerkeley News By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | 03 August 2009 Read the full report BERKELEY — Mark R. Rosenzweig, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, whose early studies paved the way for today's recognition of the brain's ability to grow and repair itself, died July 20 at his home in Berkeley from kidney failure. He was 86. A prolific researcher, writer and French-speaking internationalist, Rosenzweig collaborated with some of the greatest minds in neuropsychology at Harvard University, UC Berkeley and the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France. At UC Berkeley, Rosenzweig collaborated with biochemist Ed Bennett, psychologist David Krech and neuroanatomist Marian Diamond on studies that provided early evidence of brain plasticity - the now-well established notion that neural pathways change throughout our lives as we grow and learn. In additio...

Bits: If You’re Happy and You Know It, Tell Your Phone By Jenna Wortham Published: July 29, 2009 A Harvard graduate student is surveying iPhone users to help answer an age-old question: What makes people happy? click here to read