Neurology
University Hospitals Case Medical Center finds new treatment holds promise for Tourette syndrome
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Research out of the Neurological Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center finds that Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) helps patients who suffer from Tourette Syndrome (TS). This first-of-its-kind study of five adults with TS determined that DBS can reduce tic frequency and severity in some people who have exhausted other medical treatments.
Tourette syndrome is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by sudden, repetitive muscle movements (motor tics) and vocalizations (vocal tics). It often begins in childhood. By young adulthood the tics have usually diminished in frequency and severity. However, in some adults, like those that participated in this clinical trial, the tics become more disabling even with best medical therapy.
Mini-stroke: warning that major stroke is near
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Mini-strokes lead to a major stroke within one week in 1 out of 20 people and should be treated as a medical emergency, British doctors said on Sunday.
They said patients who are immediately treated for small strokes, called transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) had almost no risk of a major stroke soon afterward.
Pet Scan Helps Distinguish Alzheimer’s from Other Dementia
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A PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.
The scan, FDG-PET, helped six doctors from three national Alzheimer’s disease centers correctly diagnose frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer’s in almost 90 percent of cases in the study—an improvement of as much as 14 percent from usual clinical diagnostic methods. FDG stands for fluorodeoxyglucose, a short-lived radioactive form of sugar injected into people during PET scans to show activity levels in different parts of the brain. In Alzheimer’s low activity is mostly in the back part of the brain; in FTD, low activity is mostly in the front of the brain.
Educated People Who Develop Dementia Lose Memory at Faster Rate
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People with more years of education lose their memory faster than those with less education in the years prior to a diagnosis of dementia, according to a study published in the October 23, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study included 117 people who developed dementia out of an original cohort of 488 people. Researchers followed the participants for an average of six years using annual cognitive tests. Study participants ranged in formal education levels of less than three years of elementary school to people with postgraduate education.
Alzheimer’s drug side effects can be reduced
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Although rivastigmine improves cognitive symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s disease whether it is given twice or three times a day, the three times a day dosing schedule tends to produce fewer side effects and thus increase tolerability, researchers report in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
“This study,” lead investigator Dr. Howard H. Feldman told Reuters Health, “suggests that for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease, rivastigmine treatment delivered in three times a day dosing—with smaller individual doses—may provide better efficacy and safety.”
Cigarette Smoking May Accelerate Disability in Those with MS
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Persons with multiple sclerosis who smoke risk increasing the amount of brain tissue shrinkage, a consequence of MS, and the subsequent severity of their disease, new research conducted at the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC) at the University at Buffalo has shown.
The results are based on magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of smokers and nonsmokers in 368 MS patients treated in UB’s Jacobs Neurological Institute, the university’s Department of Neurology in its School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
New treatment for stroke works up to a day after symptoms start
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People treated with the drug minocycline within six to 24 hours after a stroke had significantly fewer disabilities, according to a study published in the October 2, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers say minocycline may be an alternative treatment for stroke because current treatments only work during the first few hours after the onset of symptoms, and many people don’t get to the hospital in time to be treated.
For the study, 152 men and women received either an oral dose of minocycline or placebo for five days following stroke. People who received minocycline were treated an average of 13 hours after stroke compared to 12 hours for the placebo group. Researchers followed both groups for three months.
Heavy elderly not at risk of memory decline
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Older adults who are overweight do not seem to be at any extra risk of memory decline, a new study suggests.
In fact, researchers found, it was underweight men and women who were more likely to see their memory suffer over time. They speculate that this is because poor nutrition and weight loss may be early manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease in some older people.
Dementia risk increased among older smokers
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Over 55 years old and smoke? You’re significantly more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease than people who never smoked or have quit, findings from a Dutch study suggest.
“Over seven years of follow up, those who currently smoked were 50 percent more likely to develop dementia than never smokers (while) past-smokers had a slightly increased risk to develop dementia,” Dr. Monique Breteler told Reuters Health.
Meth abuse may speed age-related brain degeneration
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Young people who abuse methamphetamines may put themselves at risk of parkinson-like movement disorders later in life, a new animal study suggests.
In experiments with mice, scientists found that animals deficient in a protein called glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) were especially vulnerable to long-term movement problems after being exposed to the neurotoxic effects of a methamphetamine “binge.”
Potential New Therapy for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Conditions
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Researchers have provided new information about how communication among neurons may be prevented from deteriorating in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The new results, which appear in the August issue of Molecular & Cellular Proteomics (http://www.mcponline.org/), may lead to new therapies for the treatment of not only AD but also motor neuron diseases and prion diseases.
Most current research efforts to find a treatment for AD and similar conditions focuses on what happens to the main part – or body – of a neuron, but recent studies have examined how neuronal communication is impaired in human diseases such as AD.
SIDS linked to early atherosclerosis
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Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) appears to be associated with the early stages of arterial plaque build-up seen in atherosclerosis, sometimes referred to as “hardening of the arteries, according to a study presented on Sunday at the Argentine Congress of Cardiology. However, the mechanism of this association is unclear, the researchers said.
Dr. Jose Milei and colleagues, at the University of Buenos Aires Cardiological Research Institute, analyzed autopsy samples of 52 SIDS victims and 16 babies who had died of unrelated causes, such as meningitis or trauma.
Infusions may ease severe diabetic nerve pain
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The case of man disabled by diabetes-related nerve damage and muscle weakness suggests that such symptoms can be markedly improved by infusions of immune globulin—a product derived from blood donations that contains high quantities of antibodies.
Japanese researchers describe the case in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. Dr. Gen Sobue told Reuters Health that intravenous immune globulin or IVIg “was effective in improving severe pain symptoms and muscle weakness” in this patient.
Link identified between Alzheimer’s disease and glaucoma
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UK scientists have shown for the first time that key proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease are also implicated in glaucoma, the major cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Research carried out at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and funded by the Wellcome Trust has also shown that novel drugs being trialled for Alzheimer’s disease which target this protein may be used to treat glaucoma.
The research team has developed a new technology for visualising nerve cell damage in the retina, known as Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells. Using this technology, they demonstrated that the protein beta-amyloid, which causes the so-called “plaque” lesions in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, also leads to nerve cell death in the retina. The research is published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Caffeine may slow cognitive decline in older women
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Several cups of coffee or tea per day seem to slow the loss of brain cells in elderly women, but caffeine has no effect on dementia itself, according to results of a new study.
Dr. Karen Ritchie, a scientist at INSERM U888 in Montpellier, France, and her associates followed 2,820 men and 4,197 women, age 65 or older, and free of dementia. The team assessed the participants’ caffeine consumption in terms of 100-milligram “units”; one cup of coffee was considered to contain 100 mg of caffeine and tea, 50 mg.
