Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

New Autism Brain Bank In Works

Excerpt from: Disability Scoop (click for full article)

 

A new multi-site network will launch this fall to collect brain samples for autism research in an effort to accelerate understanding of the developmental disorder.

The network known as Autism BrainNet will be an expansion of Autism Speaks’ Autism Tissue Program and will be the first such initiative to have sites across the country dedicated to acquiring, processing, storing and distributing brain tissue, organizers said.

Scientists say studying brain samples is the best way to understand autism, but such specimens are in short supply. The need for donations became even more urgent last year when a freezer malfunction at a Massachusetts brain bank left one-third of the world’s largest collection of autism brain samples unusable, though backers say the network set to launch later this year was already in the works when the failure occurred.

Healing hormone provides hope for brain injury

Excerpt from: Emory.edu (click for full article)

 

If Don Stein were the kind of man who listened to what others said, he would have shut down his lab years ago. The Emory neuroscientist spent more than two decades investigating progesterone as a treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) — a pursuit that was unappreciated at best and maligned at worst. A naturally occurring hormone was too simple a solution to too complex a problem, according to the prevailing wisdom.

Today Stein stands if not on the threshold of vindication, at least within the general neighborhood. After better-than-hoped-for results from the first human trial, progesterone is being tested in two nationwide phase 3 trials and also internationally in more than 20 countries.

And Stein is now expanding his scope to test whether progesterone can work its magic in other conditions, such as stroke, pediatric TBI and brain tumors.

Study Points To Treatment For Cerebral Palsy

Excerpt from: Disability Scoop (click for full article)

 

A new technique being heralded as a breakthrough could have significant implications for the treatment of cerebral palsy.

Researchers say they’ve found a way to transform ordinary skin cells into brain cells that are missing or damaged in individuals with cerebral palsy and related disorders like multiple sclerosis. In such conditions, so-called myelinating cells — which help the brain send instructions to the rest of the body — cannot naturally be replaced.

In a study published Sunday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, scientists say they have successfully used the technique to alter cells from mice and are now looking to test it on human cells.

The approach dubbed “cellular reprogramming” is particularly promising, researchers say, because it relies on fibroblasts, a type of cell found in skin and many organs, that is abundantly available.

Older and Wiser - A Better Brain Is Just Not Wishful Thinking Anymore

Excerpt from: The Caregiver Partnership (click for full article)

 

Now for some really good news about brain health. Scientists (and thus the rest of us) used to think that after reaching age thirty it was a slow, then fast slide downhill for our brains. Many wonder–if that is true then why are most of the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies over the age of 50?

New research shows that older brains may well have abilities that younger brains have not yet developed. In the competitive and success driven leadership arena, there is no room for error. The acuity of these executives is tested daily and scrutinized regularly. They must be equal to the task or be replaced.

In the new book "Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old" Tracey Bowman and Mary Boone Wellington detail scientific discoveries that explain this phenomena. New research shows that older brains may well have abilities that younger brains have not yet developed. In an unprecedented longitudinal study (using the same people over a period of years), Sherry Willis of Penn State University found that in vocabulary, verbal memory, spacial orientation and inductive reasoning, people performed best between the ages of forty and sixty five. They found that the ability to do fast calculations does decline after age twenty five, but by better utilization of both halves of the brain, seniors excel at drawing fast and meaningful conclusions.

The Impact Of Traumatic Brain Injury On Sexuality And The Importance Of Rehabilitation Strategies

Excerpt from: Medical News Today (click for full article)

 

Each year more than three million Americans are living with traumatic brain injury (TBI), a condition that is associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional problems that often affect their sexuality, and subsequently their marital stability, identity, and self-esteem. Taking an in-depth look at the impact of TBI on sexuality, an investigative team critically reviews fourteen studies representing a collective study sample of nearly 1,500 patients, partners, spouses, control individuals, and rehabilitation professionals to examine brain injury and sexuality. It is published in NeuroRehabilitation: An International Journal.

"Sexuality in patients with chronic disease or physical handicaps warrants attention and consideration so that effective intervention plans can be formulated. A healthy sex life may decrease muscular and emotional tension, increase pain threshold, reduce physical stress, improve sleep, and diminish emotional stress within relationships," says Jhon Alexander Moreno, doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada. He has made this important issue the central topic of his research work, which is conducted under the international direction of Professors Michelle McKerral at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation in Montréal, and Juan Carlos Arango Lasprilla from the University of Deusto, Spain, in collaboration with Caron Gan from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, Canada. "A lack of information and education on sexuality and disability is a major contributing factor towards the stigma attached to them."

Taking brain injuries from the battlefield to the classroom

Excerpt from: KOSU (click for full article)

 

TBI isn’t a new injury, and it’s not unique to recent wars. But many experts believe that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, with their blurred front lines and improvised explosive devices, have particular harm to the brains of the people fighting in them.

“These wars are different from, say, World War II,” says David Hovda, Director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. “In Iraq and Afghanistan, you could be walking down any street and have somebody blow up an IED or a car and the explosive that’s being used is so powerful, it’s a devastating way to be exposed to an injury.”

Just how many veterans have a traumatic brain injury is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Estimates vary widely; the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center says almost 270,000 traumatic brain injuries have been diagnosed in service members between 2000 and 2012 — most of which are not deployment-related – and a report from the Rand Corporation suggests that almost 20 percent of service members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan say they experienced a traumatic brain injury during deployment.

Single Concussion May Lead to Lasting Brain Damage

Excerpt from: Health (click for full article)

 

Just one concussion can cause long-term structural damage to the brain, according to a new study.

Researchers used 3-D MRI to examine the volume of gray and white brain matter in 19 concussion patients one year after their injury, and in 12 people who had not suffered a concussion. The scans revealed measurable losses of gray and white matter (brain atrophy) in the concussion patients, according to the study, which was published online March 12 in the journal Radiology.

The finding is the first of its kind and shows that brain atrophy occurs not only in people who have suffered severe brain injuries, but also in those who have had just one concussion, said Dr. Yvonne Lui, neuroradiology section chief and assistant professor of radiology at the NYU Langone School of Medicine, in New York City.

How Chronic Stress Accelerates Alzheimer’s Disease

Excerpt from: Science Daily (click for full article)

 

Why does chronic stress lead to increased risk for dementia? The answer may lie in the elevation of stress steroids that is seen in the brain during stress, Sara K. Bengtsson suggests in the thesis she is defending at Umeå University in Sweden on March 22nd.

These stress steroids can inhibit the general brain activity. Allopregnanolon is one of them, and the doctoral thesis shows that chronically elevated levels of allopregnanolone accelerated the disease development in two transgenic Alzheimer disease models. The Alzheimer mice responded with impaired learning and memory. They had also increased brain levels of beta-amyloids, i.e. the proteins that form plaques in Alzheimer's disease.

The thesis also demonstrates that high levels of beta-amyloids corresponded to dysfunction among brain synapses. This was seen after a period of chronically elevated levels of allopregnanolon, but not after placebo treatment. The effects were identified early in the disease development when the animals normally have intact memory function. A similar acceleration of AD in humans could mean the difference between living self-sufficiently at home and living with requirements of professional care.

The History of Lobotomy

Excerpt from: Cerebromente (click for full article)

 

The origins of modern psychosurgery are to be found in the last decades of the 19th century, when science was beginning to understand how the human mind and behavior could be mapped out into the anatomical features of the brain. A German scientist named Friederich Golz, doing experiments with the surgical ablation of neocortex in dogs, reported in 1890 that when the temporal lobe were removed, animals were more tame and calmer than the unoperated ones.

Stress, the Brain, & Chronic Pain

Excerpt from: Pain-Topics.org News (click for full article)

 

Patients with chronic or recurring pain know how stressful their conditions can become. New research suggests that there may be physiologic causes of such stress, mediated by changes in brain structure that make these persons even more vulnerable to stress and pain. While there were many limitations of the study, there are implications for the importance of stress-reduction techniques in helping to better manage chronic pain.

The study — conducted primarily by Canadian researchers at the Université de Montréal — included 16 patients with chronic back pain and a control group of 18 healthy subjects [Vachon-Presseau et al. 2013]. The research objective was to analyze relationships between 4 factors: 1) cortisol levels, which were determined via saliva samples collected during 7 days; 2) assessments of clinical pain reported by patients prior to brain scans (self-perception of pain); 3) the size of brain hippocampal regions measured using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); and 4) brain activations assessed with functional MRI (fMRI) following application of a thermal pain stimulus.