Zoë Corbyn At a time when women’s reproductive freedoms are under attack, any suggestion that the birth control pill could be problematic feels explosive. But Sarah E Hill, a professor of social psychology at the Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas argues we need to talk about how oral contraceptives are affecting women’s thinking, emotions and behaviour. How the Pill Changes Everything: Your Brain on Birth Control is her new book about the science behind a delicate subject. Some US states have recently made it harder to get an abortion and the Trump administration is doing its best to chisel away at access to birth control. Is your book trying to dissuade women from using the pill? My institution was founded as a Christian school, but it doesn’t have a particular religious bent now. My goal with this book is not to take the pill away or alarm women. It is to give them information they haven’t had up until now so they can make informed decisions. The pill, along with safe, legalised abortions, are the two biggest keys to women’s rights. But we also have a blind spot when it comes to thinking about how changing women’s sex hormones – which is what the pill does – influences their brains. For a long time, women have been experiencing “psychological” side-effects on the pill but nobody was telling them why. The backlash we are seeing against the pill, particularly with millennial women walking away from it, I think is because women haven’t felt right on it and have grown weary of doctors patting them on their heads and telling them they are wrong. The more information women have, the more it will bring them back to the pill. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26723 - Posted: 10.19.2019

Fatty tissue has been found in the lungs of overweight and obese people for the first time. Australian researchers analysed lung samples from 52 people and found the amount of fat increased in line with body mass index. They said their findings could explain why being overweight or obese increased asthma risk. Lung experts said it would be interesting to see if the effect could be reversed by weight loss. In the study, published in the European Respiratory Journal, scientists looked at post-mortem samples of lung donated for research. Fifteen had had no reported asthma, 21 had asthma but died of other causes and 16 died of the condition. The scientists used dyes to carry out detailed analyses of almost 1,400 airways from the lung samples under the microscope. The researchers found adipose (fatty) tissue in the walls of airways, with more present in people with a higher body mass index, And they say the increase in fat appears to alter the normal structure of the airways and cause inflammation in the lungs - which could explain the increased risk of asthma in overweight or obese people. Dr Peter Noble, an associate professor at the University of Western Australia, in Perth who worked on the study, said: "Being overweight or obese has already been linked to having asthma or having worse asthma symptoms. "Researchers have suggested that the link might be explained by the direct pressure of excess weight on the lungs or by a general increase in inflammation created by excess weight." But, he said, their study suggested "another mechanism is also at play". © 2019 BBC.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 26722 - Posted: 10.19.2019

Ian Sample Science editor Warning: this story is about death. You might want to click away now. That’s because, researchers say, our brains do their best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise. A study found that the brain shields us from existential fear by categorising death as an unfortunate event that only befalls other people. “The brain does not accept that death is related to us,” said Yair Dor-Ziderman, at Bar Ilan University in Israel. “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it.” Being shielded from thoughts of our future death could be crucial for us to live in the present. The protection may switch on in early life as our minds develop and we realise death comes to us all. “The moment you have this ability to look into your own future, you realise that at some point you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Dor-Ziderman. “That goes against the grain of our whole biology, which is helping us to stay alive.” To investigate how the brain handles thoughts of death, Dor-Ziderman and colleagues developed a test that involved producing signals of surprise in the brain. They asked volunteers to watch faces flash up on a screen while their brain activity was monitored. The person’s own face or that of a stranger flashed up on screen several times, followed by a different face. On seeing the final face, the brain flickered with surprise because the image clashed with what it had predicted. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 26721 - Posted: 10.19.2019

/ By Nechama Moring The first time my then-partner threw me against a wall, I blamed myself. I was late coming home from work, and I hadn’t even greeted him when I walked through our door. I immediately started complaining about the unwashed dishes and food scraps littering our kitchen. He was angry, shouting at me, and then I felt his arms around me, lifting me slightly. I blacked out when the back of my head hit the kitchen wall. The nature of abuse is that it escalates, and soon my partner was routinely injuring my head, having learned that my hair would effectively hide any bruises or evidence. Over the course of the last year of our relationship, I probably sustained at least three concussions, though none were formally diagnosed. My previously infrequent migraines became almost daily realities, and my work performance tanked, along with my concentration. Simple tasks became overwhelming. Thoughts slipped from my head before I was able to act on them. I lost my ability to form coherent sentences, and I struggled to find words for even mundane items: train, telephone, exit. Exit. I couldn’t plan for shit. I am part of what Eve Valera calls an “invisible public health epidemic” of untreated traumatic brain injuries among survivors of intimate partner violence. Valera, an assistant professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who runs a brain-imaging research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, estimates that millions of women and people of marginalized genders have suffered from both intimate partner violence and untreated concussions. Yet concussions — a form of traumatic brain injury — are generally viewed as a sports-related problem. Concussion research has focused primarily on the relatively tiny population of men who play professional football. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 26720 - Posted: 10.18.2019

Jules Montague In a dark, nondescript room tucked away in the depths of a London research centre, Lucy Gallop is demonstrating how we might treat eating disorders in future. Improbably, she presses on a pedal under a desk, like a driver pulling away in first gear. Magnetic pulses pass through an electromagnetic coil which is held to a patient’s head. Clicking sounds fill the room and the patient’s neural activity is temporarily altered over the course of a few minutes. A brain scan is visible to her right, the target area already visualised. “The neuronavigation tells you whether or not you’re at the right place,” Gallop says of the process, known as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). “It’s replicable so you know when the participants come in the next time, you’re stimulating the same area.” Gallop’s work carries deep personal significance: “My sister had anorexia so I was exposed to family therapy from a young age. And truthfully, it really exposed me to how treatment is very difficult – making a full recovery from anorexia is very difficult.” New treatment innovations are urgently needed for eating disorders, which affect an estimated 1.25 million people in the UK. Hospital admissions have almost doubled in the last six years and patients are sent hundreds of miles away from home for treatment. Earlier this month, new figures showed that one in six consultant posts in eating disorder services are vacant. Patients with eating disorders are twice as likely to die prematurely than the general population. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 26719 - Posted: 10.18.2019

Andy Tay The mammalian brain consists of billions of neurons wired together in various circuits, each one involved in specific physiological functions. To better understand how these different neurons and circuits are associated with mental activities and diseases, researchers are reconstructing detailed, three-dimensional maps of neural networks. However, 3-D imaging of the mammalian brain is challenging. Light scatters as it travels through layers of tissue, dispersed by a variety of molecules such as water, lipids, and proteins. This reduces image resolution. One way to improve resolution is to reduce the scattering. Researchers achieve this by first removing water and lipids from tissue. Next, chemicals are introduced that have a refractive index—a measure of how much the molecules bend light that passes through them—in the range of that of proteins. Establishing near-homogenous refractive indices in the molecules that populate the tissue environment allows light rays to converge to improve image resolution. This is the working principle of most tissue clearing methods, which have been used successfully for decades on hard tissues like bone. Researchers have performed brain tissue clearing with limited success, as the chemicals available were too harsh on delicate neural tissues. In 2013, Karl Deisseroth and his team at Stanford University revolutionized the approach with a hydrogel-based technique called CLARITY. This technique enabled researchers to label neurons in mouse neural tissue with fluorescent markers and then to image an entire mouse brain without sectioning it, while preserving the fluorescence signals. © 1986–2019 The Scientist.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 26718 - Posted: 10.18.2019

Tim McDonnell High rates of childhood obesity are a problem in a rising number of low- and middle-income countries, according to a new global assessment of child malnutrition by UNICEF. It's the agency's most comprehensive nutrition report in two decades. The report paints a complex, dire picture of the state of children's health. Overall, it found that around 200 million children under age 5, or 1 in 3 worldwide, are either undernourished or overweight. Wasting (below-average weight for height) and micronutrient deficiency remain persistent challenges in Africa and South Asia. Still, there's some good news: Stunting (below-average height for age) has dropped sharply in the last two decades on every continent except Africa. Meanwhile, at least 340 million adolescents worldwide between ages 5-19, and 40 million children under age 5, have been classified as overweight, the report found. The most profound increase has been in the 5-19 age group, where the global rate of overweight increased from 10.3% in 2000 to 18.4% in 2018. "It's a shockingly fast increase," says Laurence Chandy, director of UNICEF's Office of Global Insights and Policy and a lead author of the report. "It's hard to think of any development indicator where you see such a rapid deterioration." Most of those children live in high- and middle-income countries in North America, Eastern Europe, Pacific island nations and the Middle East. The U.S. is near the top of the list, with a rate of adolescent overweight around 42% (the highest rates, up to 65% are in Palau, Nauru and other in Pacific island nations, which have long struggled with obesity driven by a heavy reliance on imported food). © 2019 npr

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 26717 - Posted: 10.18.2019

By Nicholas Bakalar Your personality in high school may help predict your risk of dementia decades later. Researchers reached this conclusion using a 150-item personality inventory given to a national sample of teenagers in 1960. The survey assessed character traits — sociability, calmness, empathy, maturity, conscientiousness, self-confidence and others — using scores ranging from low to high. For their study, in JAMA Psychiatry, scientists linked the scores of 82,232 of the test-takers to Medicare data on diagnoses of dementia from 2011 to 2013. They found that high extroversion, an energetic disposition, calmness and maturity were associated with a lower risk of dementia an average of 54 years later, though the association did not hold for students with low socioeconomic status. Calmness and maturity have been linked to lower levels of stress, which may help explain the association. Lower socioeconomic status, which often increases chronic stress, may negate the apparent benefits of those personality traits. “The study was not set up to discern a causal link,” said the lead author, Benjamin P. Chapman, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester. “Most likely these traits lead to all kinds of other things over 50 years that culminate in a diagnosis of dementia. We tried to rule out as many other factors as possible, but our findings are suggestive, and we don’t want to draw strong conclusions about causation.” © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 26716 - Posted: 10.18.2019

By Sara Reardon Brain scientists can watch neurons fire and communicate. They can map how brain regions light up during sensation, decision-making, and speech. What they can't explain is how all this activity gives rise to consciousness. Theories abound, but their advocates often talk past each other and interpret the same set of data differently. "Theories are very flexible," says Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington. "Like vampires, they're very difficult to slay." Now, the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF), a nonprofit best known for funding research at the intersection of science and religion, hopes to narrow the debate with experiments that directly pit theories of consciousness against each other. The first phase of the $20 million project, launched this week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, Illinois, will compare two theories of consciousness by scanning the brains of participants during cleverly designed tests. Proponents of each theory have agreed to admit it is flawed if the outcomes go against them. Head-to-head contests are rare in basic science. "It's a really outlandish project," says principal investigator Lucia Melloni, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. But understanding consciousness has become increasingly important for researchers seeking to communicate with locked-in patients, determine whether artificial intelligence systems can become conscious, or explore whether animals experience consciousness the way humans do. To winnow the theories, TWCF took inspiration from a 1919 experiment in which physicist Arthur Eddington pitted Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity against Isaac Newton's gravitational theory. Eddington measured how the Sun's gravity caused light from nearby stars to shift during a solar eclipse—and Einstein won. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 26715 - Posted: 10.17.2019

Subhash Kak Many advanced artificial intelligence projects say they are working toward building a conscious machine, based on the idea that brain functions merely encode and process multisensory information. The assumption goes, then, that once brain functions are properly understood, it should be possible to program them into a computer. Microsoft recently announced that it would spend US$1 billion on a project to do just that. So far, though, attempts to build supercomputer brains have not even come close. A multi-billion-dollar European project that began in 2013 is now largely understood to have failed. That effort has shifted to look more like a similar but less ambitious project in the U.S., developing new software tools for researchers to study brain data, rather than simulating a brain. Some researchers continue to insist that simulating neuroscience with computers is the way to go. Others, like me, view these efforts as doomed to failure because we do not believe consciousness is computable. Our basic argument is that brains integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can’t be handled in the way today’s computers sense, process and store data. Brains don’t operate like computers Living organisms store experiences in their brains by adapting neural connections in an active process between the subject and the environment. By contrast, a computer records data in short-term and long-term memory blocks. That difference means the brain’s information handling must also be different from how computers work. © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 26714 - Posted: 10.17.2019

By Laura Sanders Brainlike blobs made from chimpanzee cells mature faster than those grown from human cells. That finding, described October 16 in Nature along with other clues to human brain development, is one of the latest insights from studies of cerebral organoids — three-dimensional clumps of cells that can mimic aspects of early brain growth (SN: 2/20/18). The new study “draws interesting parallels, but also highlights important differences” in the way that the brains of humans and chimpanzees develop, says Paola Arlotta, a neurobiologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the study. While “it’s still early days in the organoid world,” the results represent an important step toward understanding the particulars of the human brain, she says. To make cerebral organoids from chimpanzees, researchers use cells in blood left over from veterinarians’ routine blood draws. In the vials were white blood cells that could be reprogrammed into stem cells, which themselves were then coaxed into blobs of brain cells. “From that, we get something that really looks a lot like the early brain,” says Gray Camp, a stem cell biologist at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel in Switzerland. There were no obvious differences in appearance between the chimpanzee organoids and the human organoids, Camp says. But a close look at how genes behaved in the two organoids — and how that behavior changed over time — turned up a big difference in pacing. Chimpanzee organoids seemed to grow up faster than their human counterparts. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2019

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Evolution
Link ID: 26713 - Posted: 10.17.2019

Nicoletta Lanese Cell transplantation therapy offers a promising route to recovery after stroke, but the grafted cells face a harsh environment, with elevated levels of free radicals and proinflammatory cytokines, compromised blood supply, and degraded neural connectivity, says Shan Ping Yu, a neurology researcher at Emory University School of Medicine. He and his colleagues aimed to build a new tool to help stem cells integrate with host neural circuitry after implantation. Scientists have long known that stimulating transplanted neural stem cells encourages them to differentiate into neurons and connect with nearby host cells. Many researchers turn to optogenetics to excite grafted stem cells, but because light travels poorly through dense tissue, the technique requires researchers to stick a laser into their subjects’ brains. So Yu and his coauthors turned instead to a type of enzyme that grants fireflies and jellyfish their glow: luciferase. “These proteins carry their own light, so they do not need a light source,” says Yu. The researchers injected neural progenitor cells that had been derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into the brains of mouse models of stroke. The cells were genetically engineered to express a fusion protein called luminopsin 3 (LMO3), crafted from the bioluminescent enzyme Gaussia luciferase and the light-sensitive protein VChR1. LMO3 activates in response to either physical light or a molecule called CTZ, which can be delivered noninvasively through the nose into the brain tissue. The fusion protein can be hooked up to either excitatory or inhibitory channels in the neurons to either stimulate or tamp down the cells’ function. Yu and his colleagues dubbed the new technique “optochemogenetics.” © 1986–2019 The Scientist.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 26712 - Posted: 10.17.2019

National Institutes of Health scientists have developed an ultrasensitive new test to detect abnormal forms of the protein tau associated with uncommon types of neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies. As they describe in Acta Neuropathologica, this advance gives them hope of using cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF—an accessible patient sample—to diagnose these and perhaps other, more common neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have linked the abnormal deposition of tau in the brain to at least 25 different neurodegenerative diseases. However, to accurately diagnose these diseases, brain tissue often must be analyzed after the patient has died. For their study, the researchers used the same test concept they developed when using post-mortem brain tissue samples to detect the abnormal tau types associated with Pick disease, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). They adapted the test to use CSF for the detection of abnormal tau of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD), and other less common tauopathies. They detected abnormal tau in CSF from both living and deceased patients. In one case, the test led to a corrected diagnosis in a patient who had died from CBD, but who was initially diagnosed with PSP. The new test is called 4R RT-QuIC—which stands for 4-repeat tau protein amplified in a real-time, quaking-induced conversion process.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 26711 - Posted: 10.17.2019

By Karen Weintraub We all wish we could get by on less sleep, but one father and son actually can—without suffering any health consequences and while actually performing on memory tests as well as, or better than, most people. To understand this rare ability, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, first identified a genetic mutation—in both individuals—that they thought might deserve the credit. Then the scientists intentionally made the same small genetic spelling mistake in mice. The mice also needed less sleep, remembered better and suffered no other ill effects, according to a study published today in Science Translational Medicine. Although a medication with the same benefits will not be available anytime soon—and might never materialize—the idea is incredibly appealing: take a pill that replicates whatever the father and son’s body does and sleep less, with no negative repercussions. “I find the concept of a gene product that might potentially provide protection against comorbid disorders of restricted sleep tantalizing,” says Patrick Fuller, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved with the work. “If true, this would indeed have ‘potential therapeutic implications,’ as well as provide another point of entry for exploring and answering the question ‘Why do we sleep?’ which remains [one] of the greatest mysteries in neuroscience.” © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Sleep; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 26710 - Posted: 10.17.2019

Diana Kwon There are approximately 5.6 million people over the age of 65 living with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. With the population aging, that number is projected to grow to 7.1 million by 2025. Researchers know that age, a family history of the disease, and carrying a genetic variant known as APOE4 are all associated with a higher chance of developing the condition. But the biological mechanisms leading to Alzheimer’s are still largely a mystery. Over the last decade, scientists have amassed evidence for a hypothesis that, prior to developing full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, patients experience a period of hyperactivity and hyperconnectivity in the brain. Several functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have reported that people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that often precedes Alzheimer’s, appear to have higher brain activity levels than their age-matched counterparts. Researchers have also found signs of such changes in healthy people carrying the APOE4 allele, as well as in presymptomatic stages of Alzheimer’s in rodent models of the disease. Krishna Singh, a physicist and imaging neuroscientist at the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Center (CUBRIC) in the UK, and his colleagues wanted to investigate this theory further. Previous studies of brain activity in young APOE4 carriers were mostly conducted using small sample sizes, according to Singh. But by the mid-2010s, his team had access to neuroimaging data from close to 200 participants studied at CUBRIC as part of an effort to build a massive dataset of healthy brains. So the researchers decided to use the data to search for signs of unusual brain activity and connectivity in people with the APOE4 allele. © 1986–2019 The Scientist

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 26709 - Posted: 10.16.2019

Mengying Zhang While many people love colorful photos of landscapes, flowers or rainbows, some biomedical researchers treasure vivid images on a much smaller scale – as tiny as one-thousandth the width of a human hair. To study the micro world and help advance medical knowledge and treatments, these scientists use fluorescent nano-sized particles. Quantum dots are one type of nanoparticle, more commonly known for their use in TV screens. They’re super tiny crystals that can transport electrons. When UV light hits these semiconducting particles, they can emit light of various colors. One nanometer is one-millionth of a millimeter. RNGS Reuters/Nanosys That fluorescence allows scientists to use them to study hidden or otherwise cryptic parts of cells, organs and other structures. I’m part of a group of nanotechnology and neuroscience researchers at the University of Washington investigating how quantum dots behave in the brain. Common brain diseases are estimated to cost the U.S. nearly US$800 billion annually. These diseases – including Alzheimer’s disease and neurodevelopmental disorders – are hard to diagnose or treat. Nanoscale tools, such as quantum dots, that can capture the nuance in complicated cell activities hold promise as brain-imaging tools or drug delivery carriers for the brain. But because there are many reasons to be concerned about their use in medicine, mainly related to health and safety, it’s important to figure out more about how they work in biological systems. © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 26708 - Posted: 10.16.2019

By Dawn MacKeen The CBD industry is flourishing, conservatively projected to hit $16 billion in the United States by 2025. Already, the plant extract is being added to cheeseburgers, toothpicks and breath sprays. More than 60 percent of CBD users have taken it for anxiety, according to a survey of 5,000 people, conducted by the Brightfield Group, a cannabis market research firm. Chronic pain, insomnia and depression follow behind. Kim Kardashian West, for example, turned to the product when “freaking out” over the birth of her fourth baby. The professional golfer Bubba Watson drifts off to sleep with it. And Martha Stewart’s French bulldog partakes, too. What is CBD? Cannabidiol, or CBD, is the lesser-known child of the cannabis sativa plant; its more famous sibling, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the active ingredient in pot that catapults users’ “high.” With roots in Central Asia, the plant is believed to have been first used medicinally — or for rituals — around 750 B.C., though there are other estimates too. Cannabidiol and THC are just two of the plant’s more than 100 cannabinoids. THC is psychoactive, and CBD may or may not be, which is a matter of debate. THC can increase anxiety; it is not clear what effect CBD is having, if any, in reducing it. THC can lead to addiction and cravings; CBD is being studied to help those in recovery. Cannabis containing 0.3 percent or less of THC is hemp. Although last year’s Farm Bill legalized hemp under federal law, it also preserved the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of products derived from cannabis. What are the claims? CBD is advertised as providing relief for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also marketed to promote sleep. Part of CBD’s popularity is that it purports to be “nonpsychoactive,” and that consumers can reap health benefits from the plant without the high (or the midnight pizza munchies). © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 26707 - Posted: 10.16.2019

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent Boosting testosterone levels significantly improves female athletic performance, according to one of the first randomised controlled trials. The findings come as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced on Monday it would impose an upper limit for testosterone levels on trans female athletes competing in middle-distance events. Testosterone was assumed to be performance-enhancing and a factor in explaining differences in strength and endurance between men and women. However, there was a surprising lack of evidence on the impact of testosterone in women and the question had become mired in controversy following a series of rulings in professional sport. The latest research confirmed that testosterone significantly increases endurance and lean muscle mass among young women, even when given for a relatively short period. Angelica Hirschberg, a gynaecologist for the Swedish Olympic Committee based at Karolinska University Hospital and the study’s first author, said the results were the first to show a causal effect of testosterone on physical performance in women. “This has not been demonstrated previously because most studies have been performed in men,” she said. “Furthermore, the study shows the magnitude of performance enhancement by testosterone. Testosterone levels increased more than four times but were still much below the male range. The improvement in endurance performance by the increased testosterone levels was more than 8% – this is a huge effect in sports.” © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26706 - Posted: 10.16.2019

Using advanced imaging, researchers have uncovered new information regarding traumatic microbleeds, which appear as small, dark lesions on MRI scans after head injury but are typically too small to be detected on CT scans. The findings published in Brain suggest that traumatic microbleeds are a form of injury to brain blood vessels and may predict worse outcomes. The study was conducted in part by scientists at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. “Traumatic microbleeds may represent injury to blood vessels that occur following even minor head injury,” said Lawrence Latour, Ph.D., NINDS researcher and senior author of the study. “While we know that damage to brain cells can be devastating, the exact impact of this vascular injury following head trauma is uncertain and requires further study.” This study, which involved researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, included 439 adults who experienced head injury and were treated in the emergency department. The subjects underwent MRI scans within 48 hours of injury, and again during four subsequent visits. Participants also completed behavioral and outcome questionnaires. The results showed that 31% of all study participants had evidence of microbleeds on their brain scans. More than half (58%) of participants with severe head injury showed microbleeds as did 27% of mild cases. The microbleeds appeared as either linear streaks or dotted, also referred to as punctate, lesions. The majority of patients who exhibited microbleeds had both types. The findings also revealed that the frontal lobes were the brain region most likely to show microbleeds.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Stroke
Link ID: 26705 - Posted: 10.16.2019

Nicola Davis A cheap and widely available drug could reduce the risk of death from common head injuries and save tens of thousands of lives each year, researchers say. Tranexamic acid slows down the breakdown of blood clots, and is already used to control heavy bleeding in people who have experienced trauma elsewhere in the body – for example from being shot or stabbed. While some of these patients might also have head injuries, it has remained unclear whether tranexamic acid would help people with head injuries alone. Now scientists say it can – at least in those with mild to moderate traumatic brain injuries – suggesting the drug should be rapidly administered to such patients. “Previous to this research, patients with isolated head injuries were an exception in the policy of giving tranexamic acid to trauma patients as soon as possible,” said Prof Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who co-led the study. “Now that exception can be removed.” Roberts says the study could have a dramatic impact. “Worldwide it has got the potential to save tens of thousands of lives – this is such a mass problem,” he said. It is estimated that there are about 70m new traumatic brain injuries worldwide every year – a situation commonly caused by motor vehicle crashes, assault or falls. The vast majority are mild or moderate injuries – but these can still prove deadly. The study, which was published in the Lancet medical journal, spanned 29 countries, with the analysis focusing on more than 9,000 patients who were treated within three hours of injury and were randomly allocated to receiving the drug, or a placebo, intravenously. The cost of the total dose of tranexamic acid used in the trial was about £6.20 per person. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Stroke
Link ID: 26704 - Posted: 10.15.2019