Neurology
Dopamine Used to Prompt Nerve Tissue to Grow
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When Yadong Wang, a chemist by training, first ventured into nerve regeneration two years ago, he didn’t know that his peers would have considered him crazy.
His idea was simple: Because neural circuits use electrical signals often conducted by neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) to communicate between the brain and the rest of the body, he could build neurotransmitters into the material used to repair a broken circuit. The neurotransmitters could coax the neurons in the damaged nerves to regrow and reconnect with their target organ.
Vegetables may help keep the brain young
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People who eat their vegetables may help keep their minds sharp into old age, a study published Monday suggests. Fruit, on the other hand, seems to have less of a benefit.
Researchers found that among more than 3,700 older adults they followed for six years, those who ate plenty of vegetables showed a significantly slower rate of decline in memory and other mental abilities.
Aggression drugs little help in Alzheimer’s: study
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Antipsychotic drugs commonly used to treat Alzheimer’s patients with delusions, aggression and other symptoms may help some patients but cause too many side effects to be truly useful, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
The drugs are given to quiet agitated and hard-to-handle Alzheimer’s patients and include olanzapine, made by Eli Lilly and Co. under the brand name Zyprexa, quetiapine, made by AstraZeneca under the brand name Seroquel, and Johnson & Johnson’s risperidone, sold as Risperdal.
“The antipsychotic medications may be effective against some symptoms in Alzheimer’s patients compared to placebo, but their tendency to cause intolerable adverse side effects in this vulnerable population offsets their benefits,” said Dr. Lon Schneider of the University of Southern California, who led the study.
Canadians paralysed after drinking carrot juice
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Carrot juice which was withdrawn from the market late last month is thought to be responsible for the illness of two Canadians who are paralyzed and are severely ill in hospital.
According to public health officials the Toronto residents drank carrot juice that has since tested positive for a botulism toxin.
The juice is said to be the same carrot juice which was recalled late in September and was one of the three brands recalled.
Insulin receptor stops progression of Alzheimer’s disease
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Stimulation of a receptor in the brain that controls insulin responses has been shown to halt or diminish the neurodegeneration of Alzheimer’s disease, providing evidence that the disease can be treated in its early stages, according to a study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School.
Researchers have found that peroxisome-proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) agonists prevent several components of neurodegeneration and preserve learning and memory in rats with induced Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They found that an agonist for PPAR delta, a receptor that is abundant in the brain, had the most overall benefit.
“This raises the possibility that you can treat patients with mild cognitive impairment who have possible or probable Alzheimer’s disease. This is really amazing because right now, there’s just no treatment that works,” says lead author Suzanne M. de la Monte, MD, MPH, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology and clinical neuroscience at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI.
The study appears in the September issue (Volume 10, Issue 1) of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Drug may improve bone density in cerebral palsy
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Low doses of pamidronate increase bone mineral density (BMD) in children with spastic cerebral palsy with severe movement impairment, according to results of a preliminary study reported in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.
All of the children had spastic quadriplegia, a severe form of cerebral palsy characterized by muscle stiffness in all four limbs, the trunk and often the mouth and tongue. These patients often have mental retardation and other problems. The decreased mobility seen in these children leads to bone loss, which puts them at high risk for fractures.
Previous studies have shown that pamidronate, sold in the U.S. and Canada as Aredia, may benefit children with disabilities and bone thinning. However, these children run the risk of developing low calcium levels in the blood, also referred to as hypocalcemia, if dosages are based on the usual adult treatment. In one study, hypocalcemia occurred in 77 percent of the patients.
A Protective Mechanism Against Neuronal Death in Alzheimer’s
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UCLA researchers have uncovered what appears to be a natural protective mechanism against a central cause of neuronal death in Alzheimer’s and similar neurodegenerative diseases. They discovered that a particular enzyme snips apart the abnormal tangles of protein called tau that are associated with cognitive decline and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s and similar diseases.
Finding may lead to skin test for Alzheimer’s
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The discovery of enzymes that react abnormally in the skin of patients with Alzheimer’s disease could lead to quick, painless test for the disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
It could not only quick and easy, but it would be the first accurate test for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, which can now only be diagnosed by careful psychiatric assessments and by examining the brain after death.
Tapan Khan and Daniel Alkon at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute in Rockville, Maryland said their test distinguished Alzheimer’s, the most common cause of dementia, from other brain-damaging diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Allergies may put you more at risk of Parkinson’s disease
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According to researchers people who suffer from allergic rhinitis may be more at risk for Parkinson’s disease later in life.
Scientists at the Mayo Clinic say that risk may be as great as three times that of someone who does not have the condition.
Allergic rhinitis is an inflammation of the nasal passages which is caused by the immune system over-reacting to substances in the air and causes runny noses and streaming eyes.
Vision: stimulating your attention
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By using simultaneous brain stimulation and activity recording to track the influence of one brain region on another, researchers have developed a new method for boosting brain function that may have implications for treatments of brain disorders and for improving vision.
The findings are reported by Christian Ruff, Jon Driver, and their colleagues at University College London and appear in the August 8th issue of Current Biology, published by Cell Press.
In their new work, the researchers used trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to trigger a chain of activity in specific parts of the brain, while the activity was measured with a scanner. In this way, they were able to show that stimulating a particular region of the frontal cortex that is normally involved in generating eye movements can change activity in visual cortex, almost as though an eye movement had been made (even though the eye itself stayed still).
Variability in Certain Gene Associated With Increased Risk of Parkinson Disease
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Variability in the SNCA gene is linked with a greater susceptibility for Parkinson disease, according to a study in the August 9 issue of JAMA.
Parkinson disease is a common neurological condition associated with increased illness and shortened life expectancy. The origin of Parkinson disease remains elusive, but genetic factors may be important, according to background information in the article. One of the most promising leads in the genetics of Parkinson disease is the potential role of the alpha-synuclein (SNCA) gene. Studies have revealed several SNCA mutations that cause Parkinson disease, but large-scale studies have been lacking.
Demetrius M. Maraganore, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn., and colleagues with the Genetic Epidemiology of Parkinson’s Disease (GEO-PD) Consortium, conducted a study to examine several issues, including whether allele-length (one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given position on a chromosome) variability in the dinucleotide repeat sequence (REP1) of the SNCA gene is associated with Parkinson disease susceptibility. The researchers performed a collaborative analysis of individual-level data on SNCA REP1 and flanking markers in patients with Parkinson disease and controls. Study site recruitment, data collection, and analyses were performed between April 4, 2004, and December 31, 2005. Eleven participating sites of a global genetics consortium provided clinical data for 2,692 cases and 2,652 controls.
Allergies Linked to Parkinson’s Disease
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Researchers from Mayo Clinic have discovered that allergic rhinitis is associated with the development of Parkinson’s disease later in life. Findings will be published in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Neurology.
“The association with Parkinson’s disease is increased to almost three times that of someone who does not have allergic rhinitis,” says James Bower, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist and lead study investigator. “That’s actually a pretty high elevation.”
Previous studies had shown that people who regularly take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, are less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. These results prompted the Mayo Clinic investigators to look further into the links between diseases characterized by inflammation and Parkinson’s. They studied 196 people who developed Parkinson’s disease, matched with people of similar age and gender who did not develop Parkinson’s. The study was conducted in Olmsted County, Minn., home of Mayo Clinic, over a 20-year period.
Antibodies show promise in treating Alzheimer’s
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Researchers say infusing human antibodies into people with Alzheimer’s disease appears to help stop the disease from getting worse and may even help the patients improve.
A research team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center gave six of eight patients intravenous immunoglobulin or IVIg for 18 months and they appeared to develop better brain function.
Dr. Norman Relkin, who led the study says the results suggests that IVIg can exert long-term benefits for the treatment of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s.
People with Parkinson disease can be apathetic without being depressed
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People with Parkinson disease can be apathetic without being depressed, and apathy may be a core feature of the disease, according to a study published in the July 11, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Apathy is a mental state characterized by a loss of motivation, loss of interest, and loss of effortful behavior. In apathy, the mood is neutral and there is a sense of indifference. In depression, the mood is negative and there is emotional suffering. Because apathy and depression share some of the same symptoms, the disorders can be misdiagnosed.
“This study shows that it’s important to screen for both apathy and depression so patients can be treated appropriately,” said study author Lindsey Kirsch-Darrow, MS, of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Protein may help detect Alzheimer’s - study
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Sampling spinal fluid for a protein that makes up the plaques that clog the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients may help diagnose the mind-wasting disease, researchers said on Monday.
As plaques build up in the brain, levels of the protein—A beta 42—are thought to decline elsewhere in the body, including the spinal fluid, according to the study appearing in the Archives of Neurology.
Other than giving suspected Alzheimer’s patients mental tests, a diagnosis can only be confirmed after death from the telltale plaques found in the brain.
