BrainBlog

The videostream of the conference is quite good (requires RealPlayer), so drop in if you want to watcht the conference. Some good presentations so far. Conference homepage

A reminder that tomorrow (Monday) you can watch the conference online. Information, including the programme, can be found at http://consensus.nih.gov/2010/alz.htm . If you tweet, the hashtag for the conference is #NIHAlz

From the NIH: NIH State-of-the-Science Conference: Preventing Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Decline - Day 1 View event: You will be able to view the event at http://videocast.nih.gov when the event is live. Air date: Monday, April 26, 2010, 8:30:00 AM Time displayed is Eastern Time, Washington DC Local [snip] Description: For many older adults, cognitive health and performance remain stable, with only a gradual and slight decline in short-term memory and reaction times. Others, however, progress into a more serious state of cognitive impairment or into various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to investigating the causes and potential treatments for Alzheimer’s and other dementias, researchers are focused on finding ways to prevent cognitive decline. Many preventive measures for cognitive decline and for preventing Alzheimer’s have been suggested, but their value in delaying the onset and/or reducing the severity of decline or disease is unclear. B...

From the BBC: The results: Brain training games don't make us smarter Read article From Nature News : Read press release Watch (in the UK): "Can You Train Your Brain?" BBC One 21st April, 2100 hrs: Description

From CBC News : Virtual reality added to soldiers' rehab 19 April 2010 Read the article

A news release from the NIH: Targeting the Blood-Brain Barrier May Delay Progression of Alzheimer's Disease 12 April 2010 Researchers may be one step closer to slowing the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease. An animal study supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, shows that by targeting the blood-brain barrier, researchers are able to slow the accumulation of a protein associated with the progression of the illness. The blood-brain barrier separates the brain from circulating blood, and it protects the brain by removing toxic metabolites and proteins formed in the brain and preventing entry of toxic chemicals from the blood. "This study may provide the experimental basis for new strategies that can be used to treat Alzheimer’s patients," said David S. Miller, Ph.D., chief of the Laboratory of Toxicology and Pharmacology at NIEHS and an author on the paper that appears in the May...

From the BPS Research Digest blog: BPS Research Digest: Is this the first ever direct evidence for human mirror neurons? The blog entry includes a link to the paper's abstract.

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

Windsor neuropsychologist Dr. Byron Rourke to receive The Order of Canada next week. Read the article in The Windsor Star

Chen Y, Li YS, Wang ZY, Xu Q, Shi GW, & Lin Y. [The efficacy of donepezil for post-stroke aphasia: a pilot case control study.] Zhonghua Nei Ke Za Zhi. 2010 Feb, 49(2), 115-118. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of donepezil for post-stroke aphasia. METHODS: Sixty patients with acute post-stroke aphasia were divided into treatment group and a control group. All patients had been treated for secondary prevention according to the guideline. The treatment group received donepezil hydrochloride (5 mg/d) for 12 weeks. The efficacy of treatment was measured by comparing the changes of scores of Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) between baseline and 12 weeks later. RESULTS: Compared with the baseline, the changes of scores of all items of WAB and Aphasia Quotient (AQ) in both group after 12 weeks follow-up were great, however, the change of AQ was significantly greater in donepezil group (34.14 +/- 17.70)than that in control group (20.69 +/- 17.26)(P = 0.004). The patients in donepezil gr...

Goetz CG. Scales to evaluate psychosis in Parkinson's disease. Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. 2009 Dec; 15 Suppl 3, 38-341 Hallucinations and psychotic behaviors are a frequent non-motor aspect of Parkinson's disease and its treatment. These behaviors usually do not occur in the presence of the physician and are therefore difficult to rate. Further, because of their bizarre nature, hallucinations are frequently underreported by patients, and caregivers are often unaware of them until they become problematic. A number of scales have been developed for rating these behaviors, most of them borrowed or adapted from assessment tools used in other psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. In the latter disorders, however, hallucinations and psychosis are phenomenologically different than the typical hallucinations of Parkinson's disease. The Movement Disorder Society Task Force on Parkinson's Disease Rating Scales has completed a systematic critique of scales used in cl...

From HealthGrades : Download a copy of the report

Kashdan TB, & Rottenberg J. Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review. 2010 Mar 12. Traditionally, positive emotions and thoughts, strengths, and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for belonging, competence, and autonomy have been seen as the cornerstones of psychological health. Without disputing their importance, these foci fail to capture many of the fluctuating, conflicting forces that are readily apparent when people navigate the environment and social world. In this paper, we review literature to offer evidence for the prominence of psychological flexibility in understanding psychological health. Thus far, the importance of psychological flexibility has been obscured by the isolation and disconnection of research conducted on this topic. Psychological flexibility spans a wide range of human abilities to: recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies ...

The Novel Tech Ethics research team at Dalhousie University, where today's Neuropsychology Abstract of the Day originated: Novel Tech Ethics website From the homepage: "The Novel Tech Ethics research team led by Françoise Baylis and based at Dalhousie University, focuses on novel technologies that promise transformation. These technologies challenge us to explore the social, political, and cultural understandings of the self, and to reexamine our ethical obligations to others, including those with whom we will not co-exist. "Currently, the Novel Tech Ethics research team has a particular focus on neural, genetic, and reproductive technologies. Grant-funded projects in these areas address the concerns of the individual, the community and the species. Academic exchanges, public discussion and debate contribute to our understanding of these issues and also help to inform public policy." Among other features at the website, podcasts of presentations for their 2009 conf...

Outram SM. The use of methylphenidate among students: The future of enhancement? Journal of Medical Ethics. 2010 Apr, 36(4), 198-202. Novel Tech Ethics, Dalhousie University, 1234 LeMarchant Street, Halifax NS B3H 3P7, Canada. During the past few years considerable debate has arisen within academic journals with respect to the use of smart drugs or cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals. The following paper seeks to examine the foundations of this cognitive enhancement debate using the example of methylphenidate use among college students. The argument taken is that much of the enhancement debate rests upon inflated assumptions about the ability of such drugs to enhance and over-estimations of either the size of the current market for such drugs or the rise in popularity as drugs for enhancing cognitive abilities. This article provides an overview of the empirical evidence that methylphenidate has the ability to significantly improve cognitive abilities in healthy individuals, and exa...

Last week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report about individuals with chronic diseases and their use of the Internet to obtain and share information. The report is available at the link below: Pew Report on Chronic Disease and the Internet From the summary: "The deck is stacked against people living with chronic disease. They are disproportionately offline. They often have complicated health issues, not easily solved by the addition of even the best, most reliable, medical advice. "And yet, those who are online have a trump card. They have each other. This survey finds that having a chronic disease increases the probability that an internet user will share what they know and learn from their peers. They unearth nuggets of information. They blog. They participate in online discussions. And they just keep going. "

Study Evaluating Rebif, Copaxone, and Tysabri for Active Multiple Sclerosis (SURPASS): ClinicalTrials.gov Description === Corporate press release ===

Tam F, Churchill NW, Strother SC, & Graham SJ. A new tablet for writing and drawing during functional MRI. Human Brain Mapping. 2010 Mar 24. Writing and drawing are understudied with fMRI, partly for lack of a device that approximates these behaviors well while supporting task feedback and quantitative behavioral logging in the confines of the magnet. Consequently, we developed a tablet based on touchscreen technology that is accurate, reliable, relatively inexpensive, and fMRI compatible. After confirming fMRI compatibility, we conducted preliminary fMRI experiments examining the neural correlates of a widely used pen-and-paper neuropsychological assessment, the trail making test. In two subjects, we found left hemisphere frontal lobe activations similar to the major results of a previous group study, and we also noted individual differences mostly in the right hemisphere. These results demonstrate the utility of the new tablet for adaptations of pen-and-paper tests and suggest p...

From today's Observer : Colin Blakemore: how the human brain got bigger by accident and not through evolution Oxford neurobiologist Colin Blakemore tells Robin McKie why he thinks a mutation in the human brain 200,000 years ago suddenly made us a super-intelligent species Robin McKie 28 March 2010 The Observer Read the article

Bueti D, Bahrami B, Walsh V, & Rees G. Encoding of temporal probabilities in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience. 2010 Mar 24, 30(12), 4343-4352. Anticipating the timing of future events is a necessary precursor to preparing actions and allocating resources to sensory processing. This requires elapsed time to be represented in the brain and used to predict the temporal probability of upcoming events. While neuropsychological, imaging, magnetic stimulation studies, and single-unit recordings implicate the role of higher parietal and motor-related areas in temporal estimation, the role of earlier, purely sensory structures remains more controversial. Here we demonstrate that the temporal probability of expected visual events is encoded not by a single area but by a wide network that importantly includes neuronal populations at the very earliest cortical stages of visual processing. Moreover, we show that activity in those areas changes dynamically in a manner that closely acco...