Archive for the ‘Neurology / Neuroscience’ Category
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Medical device company Vertos Medical Inc. has reported that an observational study on mild*, published in the January/February 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Pain Physician, has demonstrated the acute safety of the procedure in the treatment of lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).1 The study, conducted by leading pain physicians Timothy Deer, M.D...
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Neurotoxins from cone snails and spiders help neurobiologists Sebastian Auer, Annika S. Sturzebecher and Dr. Ines Ibanez-Tallon of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, to investigate the function of ion channels in neurons. Ion channels in the cell membrane enable cells to communicate with their environment and are therefore of vital importance...
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Treating adults with septic shock with intensive insulin therapy to counter elevated blood glucose levels associated with corticosteroid therapy did not result in a reduced risk of in-hospital death, compared to patients who received conventional insulin therapy, according to a study in the January 27 issue of JAMA...
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light. When targeted to specific neurons, they could potentially lead to new treatments for abnormal brain activity associated with disorders including chronic pain, epilepsy, brain injury and Parkinson's disease...
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Communication between nerve cells is vital for our bodies to function. Part of this communication happens through vesicles containing signalling molecules called neurotransmitters. The vesicle fuses with the nerve cell membrane; the neurotransmitters are released and quickly recorded by the next nerve cell...
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
An international team of scientists has discovered that the human body has an entirely unique and separate sensory system that is largely imperceptible in most people and is based on blood vessels and sweat glands and not on nerves...
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
An international team of scientists has discovered that the human body has an entirely unique and separate sensory system that is largely imperceptible in most people and is based on blood vessels and sweat glands and not on nerves...
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT) , also known as Chacot-Marie-Tooth hereditary neuropathy, peroneal muscular atrophy, and hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy, is a genetic disease of nerves, typically with progressive muscle weakness, particularly the arms and legs...
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Carole Riggs, a retired teacher and school principal, points to her work during one Christmas vacation bending, twisting and sitting on the floor to create games and teaching aids as the primary culprit behind many years of back pain. Burak M. Ozgur, M.D...
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Carole Riggs, a retired teacher and school principal, points to her work during one Christmas vacation bending, twisting and sitting on the floor to create games and teaching aids as the primary culprit behind many years of back pain. Burak M. Ozgur, M.D...
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Carole Riggs, a retired teacher and school principal, points to her work during one Christmas vacation bending, twisting and sitting on the floor to create games and teaching aids as the primary culprit behind many years of back pain. Burak M. Ozgur, M.D...
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Dystonia is a general term which describes involuntary movements and extended muscle contractions - a range of movement disorders. The patient has twisting body movements, tremor and unusual or awkward postures. For some patients the whole body may be involved in the movements, while for others only certain parts of the body are affected. Dystonia symptoms may be linked to specific tasks, such as writing, as in writer's cramp.
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Children who eat fish more than 3 times per week show a worse performance in the general cognitive, executive and perceptual-manipulative areas. Those with higher levels of exposure to mercury show a generalised delay in cognitive, memory and verbal areas. Mercury is a contaminant found especially in oily fish and canned fish and to a lesser extent in white fish.
Friday, November 13th, 2009
A drug to stop bleeding during a brain injury and a mattress that will prevent bedsores are among the scientific discoveries at NJIT that received earlier this week more than a million dollars in funding from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology. The discoveries are the work of five early stage companies based at NJIT's Enterprise Development Center (EDC), the state's oldest business incubator program.
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Neurology have received a $1.8 million dollar grant to develop a novel therapy for neuropathic pain, a difficult to treat condition in which patients experience pain because of damage to nerve without obvious tissue injury.
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
The Stop ALD Foundation has applauded the investigators who are reporting in the current issue of Science successful results from the pioneering use of gene therapy for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a potentially crippling and fatal brain disorder in young boys...
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Science now offers us ever more advanced ways to understand and control pain. But with those new treatments come new questions about the use (and misuse) of state-of-the-art technology and how far pain management can and should go.
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Fragile X tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a recently recognized condition, which is actually one of the most prevalent heritable neurodegenerative diseases. It is assumed that the condition is caused by deficiency for the protein Pur-alpha, which is essential for normal neural function. Structural studies undertaken by a team under the leadership of Dr.
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
The biological safety of nanotechnology, in other words, how the body reacts to nanoparticles, is a hot topic. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have managed for the first time to carry out successful experiments involving the injection of so-called 'nanowires.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
The inflammatory response following a spinal cord injury appears to be set up to cause extra tissue damage instead of promoting healing, new research suggests. Scientists analyzing this inflammatory response in mice discovered that the types of cells recruited to the site of the injury are dominated within a week by those that promote inflammation. When chronic, inflammation can prevent healing, and these inflammatory cells are believed to remain at the injury site indefinitely.
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
To the patient, automated nerve conduction studies (NCSs) may sound appealing because they are less invasive than needle electromyography (EMG). To the physician with no formal electrodiagnostic (EDX) training, the ability to perform an automated test in their office is convenient for patients and may generate additional revenue for their practice.