Brain

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Duke University Medical Center have linked mutations in two genes, IDH1 and IDH2, to nearly three-quarters of several of the most common types of brain cancers known as gliomas. Among the findings: people with certain tumors that carry these genetic alterations appear to survive at least twice as long as those without them.

Further research on the genes could also lead to more precise diagnosis and treatments, they said.

MADISON – Warfarin, one of the world's most widely used drugs, is also one of the trickiest to prescribe. Half of those who take it are at risk of serious problems when given the standard starting dose.

Now, in one of the first illustrations of "personalized medicine" based on genetic information, an international research team has created a model to help doctors determine the best dose of the blood-thinning drug for each patient.

Three University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers were involved in the work.

SEATTLE – People who have parents diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia may be more likely to have memory loss themselves in middle age, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.

(Boston) – People who have parents diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia perform less well on formal memory testing when compared to people of the same age whose parents never developed Alzheimer's disease or other dementia. This is true even in middle-aged persons who do not have a diagnosis of clinical stroke or dementia, according to a Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) study. This study has been selected to be presented at a Plenary Session at the American Academy of Neurology's 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, Wash from April 25 – May 2.

Robot-assisted therapy may help stroke patients attain gains in their physical abilities long after the stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2009.

Improvement in this small, randomized study varied with the severity of a patient's disability at the time of rehabilitation: the less disability at the start of the two-week therapy, the more gain in physical ability.

Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered that early visual areas, long believed to play no role in higher cognitive functions such as memory, retain information previously hidden from brain studies. The researchers made the discovery using a new technique for decoding data from functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. The findings are a significant step forward in understanding how we perceive, process and remember visual information.

The results were published Feb. 18 online by Nature.

The way in which bacteria that cause bacterial meningitis mimic human cells to evade the body's innate immune system has been revealed by researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London.

The study, published in Nature, could lead to the development of new vaccines that give better protection against meningitis B, the strain which accounts for the vast majority of cases of the disease in the UK.

A new study involving iPods and teenagers by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Children's Hospital Boston indicates teenagers who receive pressure from their peers or others to turn down the volume of their iPods instead turn them up higher.

Patients who arrived at specific hospitals within one hour of experiencing stroke symptoms received a powerful clot-busting drug twice as often as those who arrived later in the approved time window for treatment, according to a new study presented today at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2009.

The results of the project, developed by researchers of the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) of the University of Navarra have been published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The enormous pressures needed to melt diamond to slush and then to a completely liquid state have been determined ten times more accurately by Sandia National Laboratories researchers than ever before.

As a bonus to science, researchers Marcus Knudson, Mike Desjarlais, and Daniel Dolan discovered a triple point at which solid diamond, liquid carbon, and a long-theorized but never-before-confirmed state of solid carbon called bc8 were found to exist together.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A widely used blood pressure medication may be the key to preventing brain function loss common after radiation treatment, according to a newly published study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The findings offer the hope of an improved quality of life for cancer patients.

Using a rat model, the study drew on a hypothesis from previous studies that a compound similar to the anti-hypertensive drug losartan can prevent the cognition loss that has been closely-associated with radiation therapy for brain tumor treatment.

A case report published in this week's issue of the open-access general medical journal, PLoS Medicine, describes a rare side effect of human fetal stem cell therapy. Ninette Amariglio and Gideon Rechavi from the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel, and colleagues report the case of a boy with a rare genetic disease, Ataxia Telangiectasia, who underwent human fetal stem cell therapy at an unrelated clinic in Moscow and who, four years after the therapy began, was shown to have abnormal growths in his brain and spinal cord.

STANFORD, Calif. — Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that a commonly available non-addictive drug can prevent symptoms of withdrawal from opioids with little likelihood of serious side effects. The drug, ondansetron, which is already approved to treat nausea and vomiting, appears to avoid some of the problems that accompany existing treatments for addiction to these powerful painkillers, the scientists said.

New animal research in the February 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience may indicate how certain diseases make people feel so tired and listless. Although the brain is usually isolated from the immune system, the study suggests that certain behavioral changes suffered by those with chronic inflammatory diseases are caused by the infiltration of immune cells into the brain. The findings suggest possible new treatment avenues to improve patients' quality of life.