Stroke is a leading cause of death and severe long-term disability with limited treatment available. A research team led by Prof. Gong Chen at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China recently reported the first non-human primate study demonstrating successful in vivo neural regeneration from brain internal glial cells for stroke repair.
Ms. Long-Jiao Ge, the first author of the work and a PhD student in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "Current treatment of ischemic stroke mainly aims at restoring blood flow and neuroprotection, typically with a narrow time window of several hours.
Preventing heart attacks and strokes in type 2 diabetes patients managed in primary care should be an urgent priority, concludes a new study.
"The most striking result of our study was that the vast majority of patients (93%) had a high or very high risk of fatal events within a decade. Half of patients in the very high-risk group had no history of heart disease, meaning they would not be receiving medications to prevent heart attacks and strokes," said study author Dr. Manel Mata-Cases, a general practitioner for the Catalan Institute of Health.
Up to 22% of soccer injuries are concussions that can result from players using their heads to direct the ball during a game.
To reduce risk of injury, a new study recommends preventing how hard a ball hits the head by inflating balls to lower pressures and subbing them out when they get wet.
A study, conducted by Purdue University engineers, found that inflating balls to pressures on the lower end of ranges enforced by soccer governing bodies such as the NCAA and FIFA could reduce forces associated with potential head injury by about 20%.
But if the ball gets too wet, it can quickly surpass the NCAA weight limit for game play and still produce a nasty impact, the researchers said.
What happens in our brain that makes us experience the sweet taste of a donut or the bitter taste of tonic water? What are the patterns of neural activity responsible for the perception of taste?
A new study from Stony Brook University found that the map of neural responses mediating taste perception does not involve, as previously believed, specialized groups of neurons in the brain, but rather overlapping and spatially distributed populations.
The findings, to be published in Current Biology, counter an influential but controversial theory based on studies suggesting that there is a topographic map in the gustatory cortex that is responsible for our perception of taste. According to this theory, the gustatory cortex has "hot spots" of neurons whose activation leads to the perception of certain tastes. The new study by Stony Brook researchers demonstrates such a simple map of taste does not exist in the cortex of behaving animals.
Episode six of the Curious Case Manager features Fifth Sense, a charity for people affected by smell and taste disorders.
In this episode Vicki Gilman talks to Duncan Boak, founder of Fifth Sense and Nina Hill, director of development and operations.
They discuss Duncan’s own experience of loss of smell after he suffered from a traumatic brain injury, and how this led him to establish the charity.
Duncan and Nina explain the history and development of the charity and explain how they support individuals with smell and taste disorders through providing information, advice and access to a network of specialist clinicians.
A study has found that 68% of people believe they should ‘reach out’ to carers more often – with 60% of respondents only asking carers how they are ‘now and again’, ‘rarely’ or ‘almost never’; leaving carers at risk of feeling forgotten.
Furthermore, 72% of respondents worried that carers struggled with ‘loneliness’ thanks to the full-on nature of care leaving them little time for socialising.
Throughout the pandemic, caregivers have been at the forefront of the fight, looking after the most vulnerable in society and putting their own lives on the line to do so. In light of this, a campaign called #ReachOutAndHelpOut has been launched to encourage support for carers as they continue to deliver essential care to those in need – amidst fears that carers’ wellbeing is often overlooked.
Research on a genetic heart disease has uncovered a new and unexpected mechanism for heart failure. This landmark discovery found a correlation between the clumping of RNA-binding proteins ― long linked to neurodegenerative disease ― and the aggregates of protein found in the heart tissue of patients with RBM20 dilated cardiomyopathy.
Dilated cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. A decade ago, Timothy Olson, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist at Mayo Clinic, traced the disease to a genetic mutation in a gene called RBM20. Unlike most heart disease, this form of cardiomyopathy can affect patients as early as young adulthood, and they are at particularly high risk for sudden cardiac death.
Detailed results from a prespecified exploratory analysis of the positive THALES Phase III trial showed Brilinta (ticagrelor) 90mg, used twice daily and taken with daily aspirin for 30 days, reduced the rate of the composite of disabling stroke or death by 17% compared to aspirin alone; in patients who had an acute ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA).
The rate of the composite of non-disabling stroke or death at 30 days was 1.3% in the aspirin plus ticagrelor group and 1.6% in the aspirin only group (HR 0.79 [95% CI 0.57, 1.08], p=0.140).
New clinical research has established that people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) experienced significant improvement in cognitive function when consuming a specialised ketogenic drink (BrainXpert Energy Complex) twice a day for six months.
Affecting 15-20% of people aged 65+, MCI is a decline in cognitive functioning considered a transitional stage between normal ageing and dementia.
In part, MCI develops when a person’s brain has less glucose available as a source of energy1, resulting in symptoms including memory loss, forgetfulness, and a decline in decision-making ability and judgment.
The incidence of dementia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is lower in patients receiving biologic or targeted synthetic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) than in patients who receive conventional synthetic DMARDs, according to a new study. The study was presented at the virtual annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.
"Being on a biologic or targeted synthetic DMARD actually decreased your risk of incidence of dementia by 17% compared to patients who were on a conventional synthetic DMARD only," said lead study author Sebastian Sattui, a rheumatology fellow at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City. The study was done in collaboration with investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
