BrainBlog

risser_032806_kandel Originally uploaded by rissera . neuroscientist eric kandel (right) runs into a little platform problem as his powerbook confronted a microsoft-based projection system. dr. kandel spoke this morning at a conference in boston. his topic was on animal models of mental disorders. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

It's not neuro, but it's an important medical advance. From tomorrow's New York Times : Dose of Tenacity Wears Down a Horrific Disease By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: March 26, 2006 OGI, Nigeria — Whatever secrets the turgid brown depths of the Sacred Pond of Ogi may keep, there is one they betray quite easily: why it is so infuriatingly hard to wipe even one disease off the face of the earth. Ogi is one of the last areas of Nigeria infested with Guinea worm, a plague so ancient that it is found in Egyptian mummies and is thought to be the "fiery serpent" described in the Old Testament as torturing the Israelites in the desert. For untold generations here, yardlong, spaghetti-thin worms erupted from the legs or feet — or even eye sockets — of victims, forcing their way out by exuding acid under the skin until it bubbled and burst. The searing pain drove them to plunge the blisters into the nearest pool of water, whereupon the worm would squirt out a milky cl...

From today's New York Times : Dr. James H. Schwartz, 73, Who Studied the Basis of Memory, Dies By JEREMY PEARCE Published: March 24, 2006 Dr. James H. Schwartz, a neurobiologist at Columbia whose research helped explain the biochemical basis of learning and memory, died on March 13 at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in Manhattan. He was 73. [ ... Read the full obit ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From The Washington Post : Use of Drug to Treat ADHD in Children Opposed Associated Press Friday, March 24, 2006; Page A11 The narcolepsy drug modafinil should not be approved as a treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children until more is learned about a possible link to a serious skin disease, federal advisers said yesterday. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 12 to 1 against recommending modafinil as safe for children with ADHD. Earlier, the psychopharmacologic drugs panel unanimously agreed that modafinil works as a treatment for ADHD. [ ... Read the full article ... ] - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Wilson RS, Arnold SE, Tang Y, & Bennett DA. Odor identification and decline in different cognitive domains in old age. Neuroepidemiology. 2006; 26(2): 61-67. Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, and Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. The authors examined the association of odor identification with rate of decline in different cognitive systems. Participants are 481 older persons from the Rush Memory and Aging Project. At baseline, the Brief Smell Identification Test was administered. At annual intervals for up to 3 years, a battery of 19 cognitive tests was administered from which previously established composite measures of 5 cognitive domains were derived. In mixed-effects models adjusted for age, sex, and education, lower odor identification score was associated with lower function at baseline in each cognitive domain. Lower score was also associated with more rapid decline in perceptua...

Today's New York Times has a feature story about polio: Rumor, Fear and Fatigue Hinder Final Push to End Polio By CELIA W. DUGGER and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Read the full article . - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Harvey PD, Moriarty PJ, Kleinman L, Coyne K, Sadowsky CH, Chen M, & Mirski DF. The validation of a caregiver assessment of dementia: the Dementia Severity Scale. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders. 2005 Oct-Dec; 19(4): 186-194. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to refine and validate the Dementia Severity Scale (DSS), a newly developed assessment of dementia severity from a caregiver's perspective. The Dementia Severity Scale is designed to measure deficits in activities of daily living (ADL), behavioral disturbances, and the caregiver's perception of the patient's current cognitive abilities. METHODS: Community dwelling caregiver/patient dyads were recruited from 12 clinical sites. Patients had a primary dementia diagnosis for at least one year. In this cross-sectional study, caregivers were administered the Dementia Severity Scale, the Quality of Life-Alzheimer's Disease (QOL-AD), the Progressive Deterioration Scale (PDS), and the Neuropsychiat...

Khachaturian AS, Zandi PP, Lyketsos CG, Hayden KM, Skoog I, Norton MC, Tschanz JT, Mayer LS, Welsh-Bohmer KA, & Breitner JC. Antihypertensive Medication Use and Incident Alzheimer Disease: The Cache County Study. Archives of Neurology ; 2006 Mar 13. [Epub ahead of print] Author Affiliations: Khachaturian and Associates, Inc, Potomac, Md. BACKGROUND: Recent reports suggest that antihypertensive (AH) medications may reduce the risk of dementing illnesses. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship of AH medication use with incidence of Alzheimer disease (AD) among the elderly population (aged 65 years and older) of Cache County, Utah, and to examine whether the relationship varies with different classes of AH medications. METHODS: After an initial (wave 1) multistage assessment (1995 through 1997) to identify prevalent cases of dementia, we used similar methods 3 years later (wave 2) to identify 104 incident cases of AD among the 3308 survivors. At the baseline assessment, we obtained ...

From the AP, via Yahoo! News: Largest-Ever Alzheimer's Drug Trial Begins By PAUL ELIAS, AP Biotechnology Writer Sun Mar 12, 6:58 AM ET SAN FRANCISCO - It's tragedy enough that Pat Williams' mother has Alzheimer's disease. But Williams is also terrified because her chances of inheriting the disease are much better than average. So Williams eagerly enrolled her 90-year-old mother last year in a massive, 1,600-patient, 18-month clinical trial testing an experimental drug made by the biotechnology company Myriad Genetics Inc. The drug, called Flurizan, slowed the mind-robbing disease in some of the 128 patients with mild Alzheimer's participating in a smaller test. Based on those results, the company has gambled millions of research dollars on the largest-ever Alzheimer's drug trial. It aims to win an intense, international race among several biotech companies to find the first eff...

If it's March, then it's time for Brain Awareness Week - a creation of the Dana Foundation a number of years ago. Brain Awareness Week website . If you work in neuroscience (broadly defined), do something this week to make the general public more aware of the wonders of the nervous system and the advances being made in science and medical care. Cerebro-slinkster cool! - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

A kind thanks to Mind Hacks for their post bringing attention to this narrative article: Gray Area: Thinking With a Damaged Brain by Floyd Skloot Lost Magazine Snippet: "Poet Peter Davison has noticed the resonant irony of the phrase "an insult to the brain" and made use of it in his poem, "The Obituary Writer." Thinking about the suicide of John Berryman, the heavily-addicted poet whose long-expected death in 1972 followed years of public behavior symptomatic of brain damage, Davison writes that "his hullabaloos/of falling-down drunkenness were an insult to the brain." In this poem, toying with the meaning of the phrase, Davison suggests that Berryman's drinking may have been an insult to his brain, technically speaking, but that watching him was, for a friend, another kind of brain insult. He has grasped the fatuousness of the phrase as a medical term, its inherent judgment of contempt, and made use of it for its poetic ambiguity. "But I ...

From the AP, via the New York Times website: FDA Panel Supports MS Drug's Market Return By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: March 8, 2006 Filed at 11:24 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Food and Drug Administration panel said Wednesday the agency should allow multiple-sclerosis drug Tysabri back on the market. The drug's manufacturers, Biogen Idec Inc. and Elan Corp., pulled the drug in February 2005 after two patients developed a rare brain disorder, known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, and one died. A third patient was later discovered to have PML and also died. The 12-member panel voted unanimously to support the drug's return. The FDA usually follows its panel's advice, but isn't required to do so. The agency is expected to make a final decision by the end of the month. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From medicalnewstoday.com : Experimental Drug Reverses Key Cognitive Deficits, Pathology In Alzheimer's Main Category: Alzheimer's News Article Date: 04 Mar 2006 - 13:00pm (UK) A new drug that enhances the activity of a key brain cell receptor involved in Alzheimer's disease (AD) reverses learning and memory deficits in mice engineered to have pathological hallmarks of the disease. What's more, the drug, called AF267B, reduces both of the pathologies--the brain-clogging buildup of protein "amyloid plaque" outside brain cells and the protein "neurofibrillary tangles" inside the cells. In an article in the March 2, 2006, issue of Neuron, Dr. Frank LaFerla of the University of California, Irvine and his colleagues reported the first in vivo studies of the drug's effects. AF267B was developed by coauthor Abraham Fisher to activate particular receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. These specific receptors, called M1 receptors, are abund...

An autobiographical documentary by Paul Nadler of Montreal will air on a Canadian features show later in the month, The Lens . The program features independent Canadian filmmakers. Nadler sustained an apparently severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) a number of years ago. According to The Canadian Jewish News , it will air March 14 and 18 at 10 p.m., 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. EST. More information will probably be posted on the show's webpage on the CBC website closer to air time. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain | tbi

From this week's MMWR : Incidence Rates of Hospitalization Related to Traumatic Brain Injury --- 12 States, 2002 Full text . - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain | tbi

Of interest to neuroscience students: EVENT:  NIMH DIRP Pre-doctoral Research Festival DATE: May 11-12, 2006 LOCATION: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD URL:  NIH event link CONTACT: Margarita Valencia, mv36t@nih.gov 301-451-4512 DESCRIPTION:  This Research Festival will provide an opportunity for pre-doctoral students in neuroscience and closely related programs across the U.S. to come to the NIH campus to showcase their talents through poster and oral presentations and learn more about the research being conducted at the NIMH. In addition to the scientific agenda, students will be given opportunities to meet with current post-doctoral Fellows and NIMH Scientists to discuss in an informal environment the science being conducted throughout the Division of Intramural Research Programs. Students whose abstracts are accepted for poster or oral presentations will be provided with hotel accommodations (matched with a roommate of the same gender, unless requested otherwise) ...

Between the frisson of excitement at the upcoming testimony of Andy Fastow at the Enron trial and the anxious waiting over the BlackBerry patent dispute, today's Wall Street Journal devotes its Science Journal column by Sharon Begley to an ode to the older brain: Old Brains Don't Work That Badly After All, Especially Trained Ones The Wall Street Journal 03 March 2006, pg. B1 (Marketplace). - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

The World Bank has released a report on the topic of malnutrition - a topic that should be of interest to any developmentally oriented neuroscientist. - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

Received my copy of this new book today. Looks great! It was reviewed in Sunday's Washington Post , along with two other new neuroscience books: Read the review here . And, up in March, a book by Eric Kandel. Good times for neuroscience books written with broad appeal! - Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain

From an NIH press release: Study Implicates Potassium Channel Mutations in Neurodegeneration and Mental Retardation For the first time, researchers have linked mutations in a gene that regulates how potassium enters cells to a neurodegenerative disease and to another disorder that causes mental retardation and coordination problems. The findings may lead to new ways of treating a broad range of disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). "This type of gene has never before been linked to nerve cell death," says Stefan Pulst, M.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the new study. The report will appear in the February 26, 2006, advance online publication of Nature Genetics. In the study, the researchers looked for the gene that caused a neurodegenerative movement disord...