NeuroNews International

Neuroscientists in the UK and USA have collaborated to make “a spectacular discovery” - for the first time in human studies - of how memories are formed and new learning takes place. A collaboration between Matias Ison and Rodrigo Quian Quiroga at the Centre for Systems Neuroscience University of Leicester, UK, and Itzhak Fried at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, USA, revealed how a neuron in the brain instantly fired differently when a new memory was formed.

In this video from the Stroke Live Course (SLICE, 7-9 September 2015, Nice, France), stroke unit teams from hospitals across the globe showcase their everyday experience with stroke patients.

New therapies are on the horizon for individuals paralysed following spinal cord injury. The e-Dura implant developed by EPFL scientists can be applied directly to the spinal cord without causing damage and inflammation.

A major breakthrough in the development of stem cell-derived brain cells has put researchers on a firm path towards the first ever stem cell transplantations in people with Parkinson’s disease. A new study presents the next generation of transplantable dopamine neurons produced from stem cells. These cells carry the same properties as the dopamine neurons found in the human brain.

Traditionally, induced hypothermia has been used as a tool to protect brain cells in the presence of oxygen deprivation. But physicians are now considering how hypothermia may help to prevent brain damage due to stroke. Maxim Hammer, assistant professor in the Department of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, USA, discusses how hypothermia, when combined with other therapies, may be effective in decreasing mortality and improving outcomes for patients with brain swelling brought on by stroke.

Adriane Randolph is shaping the future of brain-computer interface as director of the BrainLab at Kennesaw State University (KSU) and as a faculty member of KSU’s Coles College of Business. At the KSU BrainLab, she is working to discover impactful solutions for brain-computer interfaces by uncovering the underlying characteristics that affect users’ control. Here is Randolph’s featured talk at TEDxCentennialParkWomen. 

From its inception, the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS) has provided important health policy content to its readership. Joshua Hirsch, Geraldine McGinty and Richard Duszak discuss their recent publication Affordable Care 2014: A tale of two boards. 

Karolinska University Hospital has the world’s first Philips NeuroSuite with the unique AlluraClarity FD20/15 interventional X-ray system. Michael Söderman reports that this new system has the perfect combination of Flat Detectors to see exactly what you want to see and to avoid collisions. 

This video has been sponsored by Philips.

Georgia Tech researchers have created a mechanical device intended to help stroke victims. Their functional MRI-compatible hemiparesis rehab device creates a long latency stretch reflex at the exact time as a brain signal.

With the largest ever research grant from Parkinson’s UK, researchers at the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre are currently recruiting people with Parkinson’s disease that have been diagnosed in the last three years or are a brother or sister of someone with Parkinson’s disease from a population base of the Thames Valley for the Parkinson’s Monument Discovery Project.

At the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago a recent study examined the effectiveness of using Navigated Brain Stimulation combined with upper limb rehabilitation to improve arm and hand use after stroke. Navigated Brain Stimulation is a form of non-invasive brain stimulation, and when used repetitively (one stimulation per second) over the non-injured side of the brain, it has been shown to reduce the excessive inhibitory drive that the non-injured side of the brain delivers to the injured side. Using new technology from Nexstim, the trial signalled a potential breakthrough in the treatment of stroke related injury, as well as benefitting many of those who received Navigated Brain Stimulation.

Josh Hirsch (Massachusetts General Hospital, USA), Philip M Meyers (Columbia University, USA) and Mahesh V Jayaraman (Rhode Island Hospital, USA) discuss the ever-developing field of neurointerventional surgery. In this podcast they talk about evidence-based medicine for cerebrovascular interventions, developing clinical guidelines and technical standards and research. The podcast is hosted by the BMJ.

Roger Ordidge, chair of Imaging Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia speaks in this video about a new PET/CT scanner located in the Melbourne Brain Centre and how it might help people with multiple sclerosis. He says that the PET/CT scanner can detect radiopharmaceuticals in the body at 1,000th of the concentration than MRI.

A woman in The Netherlands, in a pioneering surgery, has received a 3D printed skull implant. Bon Verweij, University Medical Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands, who led the operation is quoted as saying: “Implants used to be made by hand in the operating theatre using a sort of cement which was far from ideal. Using 3D printing we can make one to the exact size. This not only has great cosmetic advantages, but patients’ brain function often recovers better than using the old method.”

Carl Zimmer writes in National Geographic about charting the brain now in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. "Out of these surveys, an interesting new way to look at the brain is emerging. Call it the brain fly-through. The brain fly-through only became feasible once scientists started making large-scale maps of actual neurons in actual brains. Once they had those co-ordinates in three-dimensional space, they could programme a computer to glide through it. The results are strangely hypnotic." 

The video below is by Adam Gazzaley of the University of California at San Francisco, USA, and his colleagues, who have made it possible to fly through a representation of a thinking human brain—as it thinks. The video was captured using MRI scanning, diffusion tensor imaging, and an EEG cap. 

Find out more in Zimmer’s article. 

Charles M Eichler, professor of Surgery Division of Vascular Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, discusses patients with carotid stenosis and ipsilateral "silent" infarcts. This video is from the series: UCSF Vascular Surgery Symposium.

This video is related to the scientific publication: "Blood flow clustering and applications in virtual stenting of intracranial aneurysms" by Steffen Oeltze (department of Simulation and Graphics, faculty of Computer Science, University of Magdeburg, Germany) et al. The blood flow in a saccular side-wall aneurysm has been simulated based on the vascular morphology extracted from patient-individual data. The resulting flow data is often visualised by a dense and cluttered set of streamlines. Clustering the streamlines and computing cluster representatives reduces visual clutter and exposes characteristic flow structures. The resulting flow summary benefits the assessment of aneurysmal haemodynamics. If a virtual stent is deployed and the simulation is repeated, a comparison of the flow summaries supports a prediction of the treatment success.

The next big thing in stroke, learning from the polar vortex – Stroke in Asia and the developing world: Lawrence Wong (Division of Neurology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) talks about the importance of estimating the coming stroke epidemic at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego, USA.

Jamie van Gompel, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, discusses how advances endoscope technology for skull-base surgery can improve safety and outcomes and reduce morbidity for patients with rare skull-base tumours.

Randolph J Nudo (University of Kansas Medical Center, USA) explains how a new lightweight, battery-powered device appears capable of repairing damaged pathways in the brain. The technology holds promise helping individuals who suffer from the damage left by stroke or head injuries. 

Mark Rubin, senior Neurology resident at Mayo Clinic, summarises the findings from his study "Systematic review of telestroke," published in Postgraduate Medicine. The significant findings in the study were that cost analysis and improvement in outcomes should be a major focus of future telestroke studies.

Nick J Davis, School of Psychology, Bangor University, Wales, and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of Neurology and director of the Center of Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Harvard Medical School, USA, discuss placebo controls for non-invasive brain stimulation in an interview with the European Journal of Neuroscience.

In this video, Andre Machado, director, Center for Neurological Restoration, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA, speaks about deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease. He explains that some patients are not eligible for the traditional treatment which is performed when the patient is awake. He says the procedure, using the Imris operating room, can be performed when the patient is under general anaesthesia.

Professor Jacques Moret, interventional neuroradiologist at the NEURI Brain Vascular Center at Beaujon University Hospital, Paris, France, discusses the use of the revolutionary AlluraClarity system with ClarityIQ technology in interventional neuroradiology. He says: “This technology is providing industry-leading image quality alongside significantly improved dose management.” 

For more information about the AlluraClarity system please click here.

This video has been sponsored by Philips.

A  new treatment for multiple sclerosis and the result of over three decades of research in Cambridge University, UK, was approved on the 17 September by the EU agency responsible for regulating new drugs. The drug, lemtuzumab (brand name Lemtrada), was previously called Campath-1H ("Cambridge Pathology 1^st Human") and is indicated for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. This video explores the history of Campath-1H.

David Dodick, a neurologist and concussion expert at Mayo Clinic, USA, offers advice on returning to sport after sustaining a concussion. He emphasises the need to be certified as concussion free by a physician before returning to play and speaks about return-to-play legislation passed in some US states.

Stephen Page, Ohio State University Medical Center, USA, speaks on stroke as the leading cause of disability in the USA and how some patients, using a "bionic arm", can regain some of the movement control in their arms.

This video from UCLA Medical Center features, Paul Vespa, director of neurocritial care at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA, and EVA, the neurointensive care unit’s “executive virtual attending” physician. NeuroNews is inviting views from experts on the use of robotic technology in patient care.

In the age of 24/7 connectivity, the video shows how the department, which introduced a remote-presence robot into its neurological intensive care unit in 2005, now welcomes the first robot able to navigate the hospital on its own.

NeuroNews would like to invite physicians to share their views on the increasing use of telepresence robots that aid in meeting intensive care needs. Does such an arrangement set a new frontier in patient safety? Is there a loss in the face-to-face interaction between doctor and patient? Write in with your comments at the end of the story.

Augusto Elias, neurointerventional radiologist, Memorial Medical Center’s Stroke Center, USA, discusses performing the minimally invasive pipeline stent procedure for the treatment of large aneurysms.

Hubert Fernandez, the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, discusses research from 2012 in deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s.

Andy Ringer, Mayfield Clinic, Cincinnati, USA, discusses different options to treat unruptured brain aneurysms. 

Helmi L Lutsep, professor, vice chair, and associate director, Oregon Stroke Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, USA, discusses the results of a subanalysis of the SAMMPRIS (Stenting vs. aggressive medical therapy for intracranial arterial stenosis) trial which found lower outcome events with aggressive medical management than with stenting, even in patients who had failed antithrombotic therapy, who are perceived as being at high-risk.

In patients with small subcortical strokes, there is no benefit to be had from combination therapy using clopidogrel plus aspirin, interim results from the SPS3 (Secondary prevention of small subcortical strokes) study, presented by Oscar Benavente, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, at the the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2012, revealed.

Joyce Lee-Iannotti, neurology fellow, Mayo Clinic, Arizona, USA, explains the details of a study showing that married men experiencing a stroke call for emergency help quicker than women.

Graeme J Hankey, neurologist at the Royal Perth Hospital and University of Western Australia, speaks on data from a sub-analysis of the ROCKET-AF study at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2012 which shows that rivaroxaban (Xarelto, Bayer Healthcare) might be better at preventing clot-related strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation while minimising the risk of causing a bleeding stroke. 

Daniel J Miller, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, USA, presented a study at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2012 that shows how paroxysmal atrial fibrillation may account for some unexplained strokes. This video shows the findings of the study. 

On 25 February 2011, Billy R Williams became the first essential tremor patient in the world to receive magnetic resonance guided focused ultrasound therapy. He speaks on his experience before and after treatment.