Brain

Surgeons at Johns Hopkins have safely and effectively operated inside the brains of a dozen patients by making a small entry incision through the natural creases of an eyelid to reach the skull and deep brain.

They say access to the skull and brain through either lid, formally known as a transpalpebral orbitofrontal craniotomy, sharply contrasts with the more laborious, physically damaging and invasive, traditional means of entry used in brain surgery that requires opening the top half of the skull.

Quebec City – A clot vacuum cleaner that sucks out stroke-producing blockages from blood vessels in the brain sounds like science fiction.

But 27 Calgary patients who were rescued from massive strokes know the endovascular procedure is for real, Dr. Mayank Goyal told the Canadian Stroke Congress today.

The innovative technique uses a tool called the Penumbra System® of Continuous Aspiration Thrombectomy to break down and gently aspirate stroke-causing blood clots to open up the blocked vessels.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A psychological intervention program designed for breast cancer patients reduces the risk of dying if the cancer recurs, new research shows.

The study is the latest in a series at Ohio State University that have shown that an intervention program that teaches patients how to cope with the disease can boost their health, well-being and even their chances of survival.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Researchers at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research have developed a new mathematical model to describe how the human brain visually identifies objects. The model accurately predicts human performance on certain visual-perception tasks, which suggests that it's a good indication of what actually happens in the brain, and it could also help improve computer object-recognition systems.

Rockville, MD — More than 16 people are killed and more than 1,300 people are injured each day in crashes involving a distracted driver, a phenomenon that could be reduced with the right application of motion information and appropriate eye movements.

Two studies conducted at Vanderbilt University and published in the Journal of Vision found that these factors can be beneficial to teaching people how to track objects without getting distracted or confused.

WESTCHESTER, IL - There is an extremely high prevalence of sleep disturbances in U.S. soldiers returning from wartime deployment, according to a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

WESTCHESTER, IL – Highly variable sleep schedules predict an elevated risk for suicide independent of depression in actively suicidal young adults, according to a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

WESTCHESTER, IL – Excessive sleepiness is more common in the U.S. than in Europe, which raises concerns for public health and safety, according to a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

Quebec City − Being young doesn't mean you are immune to a stroke. You may feel healthy; you may be 18 or a vigorous 50. And yet you could be more vulnerable than you know. That could be because of the role played by silent risk factors in stroke.

Now, as a result of research from Hopital Notre Dame in Montreal, two silent factors − leukoaraiosis and silent brain infarcts − are not so silent any more.

A protein that helps build the brain in infants and children may aid efforts to restore damage from multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

In a mouse model of MS, researchers found that the protein, CXCR4, is essential for repairing myelin, a protective sheath that covers nerve cell branches. MS and other disorders damage myelin, and this damage is linked to loss of the branches inside the myelin.

WESTCHESTER, IL – Sexsomnia was reported by almost eight percent of patients at a sleep disorders center and was more common in men than women, according to a research abstract that will be presented Monday, June 7, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – In an effort to create a uniform and accurate method for determining brain death, the American Academy of Neurology has issued an updated guideline that provides doctors with a step-by-step process for determining brain death in adults. The guideline is published in the June 8, 2010, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

DETROIT – A new national guideline, co-authored by a Henry Ford Hospital neurologist, has created an updated step-by-step process to help physicians better wade through the complex process of determining brain death in adult patients.

The guideline is set to appear in the June 8 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).