BrainBlog

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

From today's Guardian : Major drug trial highlights a new approach in stroke prevention The success of Pradaxa in a 44-country trial indicates a possible end to the use of the rat poison warfarin as a primary treatment to prevent stroke Press Association guardian.co.uk Sunday 30 August 2009 23.27 BST Read the full article Boehringer Ingelheim's (BI) corporate website information about their clinical trial programmes: click here

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.

Tara Calishain and her diverse service specialty called Research Buzz provides a link to a new Google Custom Search Engine specific to hospital websites in the U.S., 2800 of them at current count. For specifics, please see her website/blog entry: click here

From The Guardian's ScienceBlog , 27 August 2009: Is quantum mechanics messing with your memory? For all we know we may live in a world in which windows un-break and cold cups of coffee spontaneously heat up, we just don't remember. The explanation is quantum entanglement. Read the piece here

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

Center for Bioethics Fall Seminar Series Time: 12:15 to 1:30 pm Location: 1-451 Moos Tower, University of Minnesota campus (unless noted otherwise) Minneapolis, MN ITV to University of Minnesota, Duluth, Room 160 Life Science November 13 “Family Stories: Decision Making in Advanced Dementia” Presented by Barbara Elliott, PhD Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Medical School, Duluth; Director, Clinical Research, Department of Family Medicine; Adjunct Professor, Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota, Duluth Seminars are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. For more information email visit www.bioethics.umn.edu

An upcoming presentation at the Newcastle University Institute of Neuroscience: IoN Seminar: The evolution of brain systems for vocal learning Erich Jarvis (Duke University) Venue: Room 218, Henry Wellcome Building Date: 7th September 2009 Time: 13:00 - 14:00 The title "The evolution of brain systems for vocal learning" is a provisional title, to be confirmed. Host: Tom Smulders

Hojat, Mohammadreza; Vergare, Michael J.; Maxwell, Kaye; Brainard, George; Herrine, Steven K.; Isenberg, Gerald A.; Veloski, Jon; Gonnella, Joseph S. The Devil is in the Third Year: A Longitudinal Study of Erosion of Empathy in Medical School Academic Medicine , September 2009 - Volume 84 - Issue 9 - pp 1182-1191. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181b17e55 The full text of this research paper is available at: Click here This issue of Academic Medicine includes additional commentary and research papers on the topic of empathy, available as courtesy full-text downloads.

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

The New York Times : Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies The Independent : Legacy of the only Kennedy brother to grow old The White House : Statement by the President The Office of the Vice President : Statement by the Vice President (includes YouTube link.) (Photo: The White House)

The September 2009 issue of Wired has a nifty little article on the impact of placebo effects on pharmaceutical clinical trials and pharma company decision making: "Real. Fake. Both Can Cure Depression." by Steve Silberman. === Addendum on 28th August: As you will see from the comments, this piece is available on Wired magazine's website. You can access it here ===

Neuropsychologist Stephen Rao is in the news, with a recent publication in the journal Neurology looking at fMRI of individuals who had frisk factors for Alzheimer's disease and normal contols as they identify famous faces. Here is a report from Time magazine's website: What Britney Spears Can Reveal About Alzheimer's By ALICE PARK Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009 Read 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 The Guardian : 'Dramatic' breakthrough in MS research Scientists find a substance called galanin is resistant to a multiple sclerosis-like disease in both mice and human brain tissue The Guardian 24 August 2009 Read the article About a research finding from a neuroscience team at the University of Bristol.

An article written by Carl Zimmer for the September issue of Discover magazine: read the article The Dark Matter of the Human Brain Meet the forgotten 90 percent of your brain: glial cells, which outnumber your neurons ten to one. And no one really knows what they do. === Neuropsychology and neuroscience students" One of Carl's books, Soul Made Flesh , is an excellent story about Thomas Willis and his times. Must-read history about neuropsychology, alongside that of the later times of Broca, Wernicke, and Hughlings Jackson.

Cleveland Clinic considering telemedicine services for ICUs, home health care MedCity News August 20, 2009 by Chris Seper Read the article

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...

From The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog : AUGUST 17, 2009, 11:12 AM ET Novartis’s Big Plans for Multiple Sclerosis By Jeanne Whalen [snippet] The FDA gave Novartis the green light today to start selling a copy of Betaseron, the multiple sclerosis drug long sold by Bayer. Why would Novartis want to sell somebody else’s years-old drug? Largely to gain experience in the MS marketplace as Novartis plots a future launch of the MS drug FTY720. “It’s a way to build a strong commercial organization and a strong medical organization ahead of FTY,” Novartis pharmaceuticals chief Joe Jimemez told the Health Blog recently. [snippet] Read the full blog entry ========== Note: Here is a reference to FTY720: Horga A, & Montalban X. (2008). FTY720 (fingolimod) for relapsing multiple sclerosis. Expert Rev Neurother., 8(5) 699-714. Clinical Neuroinmunology Unit, Multiple Sclerosis Center of Catalonia (CEM-Cat), Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain. FTY720 (fingolimod) ...

From The New York Times : Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop By NATALIE ANGIER Published: August 18, 2009 "Chronic stress changes the brain, but relaxation can change it back." Read the full article