BrainBlog

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.