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By Amina Zafar, When Susan Robertson's fingers and left arm felt funny while she was Christmas shopping, they were signs of a stroke she experienced at age 36. The stroke survivor is now concerned about her increased risk of dementia. The link between stroke and dementia is stronger than many Canadians realize, the Heart and Stroke Foundation says. The group's annual report, released Thursday, is titled "Mind the connection: preventing stroke and dementia." Stroke happens when blood stops flowing to parts of the brain. Robertson, 41, of Windsor, Ont., said her short-term memory, word-finding and organizational skills were impaired after her 2011 stroke. She's extremely grateful to have recovered the ability to speak and walk after doctors found clots had damaged her brain's left parietal lobe. "I knew what was happening, but I couldn't say it," the occupational nurse recalled. Dementia risk A stroke more than doubles the risk of dementia, said Dr. Rick Swartz, a spokesman for the foundation and a stroke neurologist in Toronto. Raising awareness about the link is not to scare people, but to show how controlling blood pressure, not smoking or quitting if you do, eating a balanced diet and being physically active reduce the risk to individuals and could make a difference at a society level, Swartz said. While aging is a common risk factor in stroke and dementia, evidence in Canada and other developed countries shows younger people are also increasingly affected. ©2016 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 22302 - Posted: 06.09.2016

By Andy Coghlan People once dependent on wheelchairs after having a stroke are walking again since receiving injections of stem cells into their brains. Participants in the small trial also saw improvements in their speech and arm movements. “One 71-year-old woman could only move her left thumb at the start of the trial,” says Gary Steinberg, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University who performed the procedure on some of the 18 participants. “She can now walk and lift her arm above her head.” Run by SanBio of Mountain View, California, this trial is the second to test whether stem cell injections into patients’ brains can help ease disabilities resulting from stroke. Patients in the first, carried out by UK company ReNeuron, also showed measurable reductions in disability a year after receiving their injections and beyond. All patients in the latest trial showed improvements. Their scores on a 100-point scale for evaluating mobility – with 100 being completely mobile – improved on average by 11.4 points, a margin considered to be clinically meaningful for patients. “The most dramatic improvements were in strength, coordination, ability to walk, the ability to use hands and the ability to communicate, especially in those whose speech had been damaged by the stroke,” says Steinberg. In both trials, improvements in patients’ mobility had plateaued since having had strokes between six months and three years previously. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 22281 - Posted: 06.04.2016

By Jordana Cepelewicz The bacteria that inhabit our guts have become key players for neuroscientists. A growing body of research links them to a wide array of mental and neurological disorders—from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. Now a study in mice published this week in Nature Medicine suggests that striking the right microbial balance could cause changes in the immune system that significantly reduce brain damage after a stroke—the second leading cause of both death and disability for people around the globe. (Scientific American is part of Springer Nature.) Experts have known for some time that stroke severity is influenced by the presence of two types of cell, found abundantly within the intestine, that calibrate immune responses: Regulatory T cells have a beneficial inflammatory effect, protecting an individual from stroke. But gamma delta T cells produce a cytokine that causes harmful inflammation after a stroke. A team of researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center set about investigating whether they could tilt the balance of these cells in the favor of beneficial cells by tinkering with the body’s bacterial residents. To do so, they bred two colonies of mice: One group’s intestinal flora was resistant to antibiotics whereas the other’s gut bacteria was vulnerable to treatment. As a result, when given a combination of antibiotics over the course of two weeks, only the latter’s microbiota underwent change. The researchers then obstructed the cerebral arteries of the mice, inducing an ischemic stroke (the most common type). They found that subsequent brain damage was 60 percent smaller in the drug-susceptible mice than it was in the other group. © 2016 Scientific American,

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Link ID: 22054 - Posted: 03.31.2016

Nicola Davis Electrical brain stimulation could benefit stroke patients by boosting the effects of rehabilitation therapy, new research suggests. Writing in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the authors reveal that patients who were given electrical brain stimulation during a rehabilitation programme performed better on a range of tasks than those taking part in the rehabilitation programme. “It is an exciting message because there is so much frustration about people not reaching their true recovery potential,” said Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg, an author of the study from the University of Oxford, highlighting the fact that the cost of programmes and limited availability of therapists often restricts the amount of rehabilitation offered to patients. To probe the effects of brain stimulation, the researchers chose 24 patients who had experienced a stroke at least six months before, and who had difficulties with moving one hand. The participants were then split into two groups. The first group underwent nine consecutive days of rehabilitation training, with each session lasting an hour. For the first 20 minutes, the patients had two electrodes placed on their heads and a direct current applied, a process known as anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). This is stimulation is thought to prime the brain for learning. © 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 22000 - Posted: 03.17.2016

Rae Ellen Bichell "I am what I like to call 'new stroke'," says Troy Hodge, a 43-year-old resident of Carol County, Md. With a carefully trimmed beard and rectangular hipster glasses, Hodge looks spry. But two years ago, his brain stopped communicating for a time with the left half of his body. He was at home getting ready for work as a food service director at a nearby nursing home. Hodge remembers entering the downstairs bathroom to take his blood pressure medications. He sat down on the bathroom floor and couldn't get up. He says he felt so hot, he actually splashed some toilet water on his face because he couldn't reach the sink. When Hodge didn't show up for work, a colleague got worried and came over. She called 911 when she found him on the floor. "I remember telling her not to let me die," says Hodge, "and from then on I really don't remember that much." He woke up a day or so later at a trauma center one state over, in Delaware. "Troy experienced what we call an intracerebral hemorrhage, which basically just means bleeding within the substance of the brain," says Dr. Steven Kittner, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Hodge's high blood pressure probably damaged the tiny vessels in his brain, Kittner says. Hodge is one of many Americans having strokes at a younger age. About 10 percent of all strokes occur in people between 18 and 50 years old, and the risk factors include some that Hodge had: high blood pressure, overweight, off-kilter cholesterol, smoking and diabetes. © 2016 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21921 - Posted: 02.22.2016

By Ariana Eunjung Cha The scariest form of stroke involves the pooling of blood in the brain. When this begins, there has been very little that can be done to stop it. Even with open brain surgery, blood often clots so fast that it's impossible to remove, and an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of patients who suffer from this condition don't survive. Of those who do pull through, 90 percent are left severely impaired. Researchers, however, believe they may have finally found a way to improve a patient's odds. Speaking at the 2016 International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles, they reported that using a clot-busting heart drug not only appeared to reduce the fatality percentage, it also appeared to increase patients' chances of a functional recovery, which in the past has been extremely rare. Issam Awad, a professor of surgery at the University of Chicago who is co-chair of the study, said the therapy could potentially "be the difference between going home instead of going to a nursing home." The study involved 500 patients with hemorrhagic or bleeding stroke from 73 sites around the world. Through a brain catheter, they were treated either with saline, which served as the control, or the drug Alteplase, which is known as a tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, and has been used in people with heart attacks or blood clots near the lungs. In the five years of follow-up from 2009 to 2015, those who received tPA were 10 percent less likely to die than those who received saline.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21911 - Posted: 02.19.2016

Sidharth Gupta always dazzled people with his intelligence. “Everybody used to praise my brother’s brain,” says Isha Gupta , two years his junior. “Everybody. Like, ‘Oh Sidharth, he’s very smart. He’s got a very sharp brain.’ That’s something that I’ve heard all my life. And his brain is what gave up on him.” Two years ago, “Sid” was the picture of exuberance and ambition. Having established his own marketing and event planning business in his native India, he moved to Toronto in 2011 to work as an account executive at Canada’s largest advertising agency, MacLaren McCann. According to Isha, Sid had big dreams. The event management company in India was just the beginning; he was planning to grow it into a worldwide marketing business. Thirty years old at the time, Sid was smart, savvy, on the ball — and always up for fun. He had “insane energy,” says colleague Zain Ali . “He could work all day and then party late and then get back to work the next day.” “Sid was very happy-go-lucky,” says another work friend, Rishi Gupta (no relation). “He had that same smile on his face all the time. He wanted to be part of the party, to have a good time.” That was Sid’s frame of mind on Feb. 20, 2014, as he geared up for a marketing launch at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. After he and Zain put in 12 hours setting up an interactive display for the new Camaro Z28, Sid joined a few friends to celebrate Rishi’s birthday. ©2016 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 21906 - Posted: 02.17.2016

Scientists hunting for a drug that speeds stroke recovery might find one in the bedside cabinets of millions of Americans. Mice treated with small doses of the sleeping pill Ambien recovered more quickly from strokes than those given a placebo. Ambien is the best-known incarnation of the drug zolpidem, which was prescribed 40 million times in the US in 2011. The researchers say that the finding should be replicated by other labs before proceeding with clinical trials, but it’s an intriguing result for a problem in desperate need of solutions. Strokes cut off the blood supply to part of the brain, leading to the death of oxygen-starved tissue. Some tissue repair can take place in the months afterwards, but most people never fully recover. Although physical therapy can help, there are no drugs that increase the amount of brain tissue repaired. “There are various natural mechanisms that promote a degree of normal recovery in animals and people, but it’s limited”, says Gary Steinberg of Stanford University School of Medicine, who was lead author of the study. One such mechanism may be an increase in signalling by the GABA neurotransmitter in parts of the brain that are able to rewire themselves. Because Ambien acts on GABA receptors, Steinberg and his team wondered whether they could use it to hack this mechanism to improve recovery. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 21710 - Posted: 12.19.2015

By Karen Russell In late October, when the Apple TV was relaunched, Bandit’s Shark Showdown was among the first apps designed for the platform. The game stars a young dolphin with anime-huge eyes, who battles hammerhead sharks with bolts of ruby light. There is a thrilling realism to the undulance of the sea: each movement a player makes in its midnight-blue canyons unleashes a web of fluming consequences. Bandit’s tail is whiplash-fast, and the sharks’ shadows glide smoothly over rocks. Every shark, fish, and dolphin is rigged with an invisible skeleton, their cartoonish looks belied by the programming that drives them—coding deeply informed by the neurobiology of action. The game’s design seems suspiciously sophisticated when compared with that of apps like Candy Crush Soda Saga and Dude Perfect 2. Bandit’s Shark Showdown’s creators, Omar Ahmad, Kat McNally, and Promit Roy, work for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and made the game in conjunction with a neuroscientist and neurologist, John Krakauer, who is trying to radically change the way we approach stroke rehabilitation. Ahmad told me that their group has two ambitions: to create a successful commercial game and to build “artistic technologies to help heal John’s patients.” A sister version of the game is currently being played by stroke patients with impaired arms. Using a robotic sling, patients learn to sync the movements of their arms to the leaping, diving dolphin; that motoric empathy, Krakauer hopes, will keep patients engaged in the immersive world of the game for hours, contracting their real muscles to move the virtual dolphin.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21635 - Posted: 11.17.2015

Looking at brain tissue from mice, monkeys and humans, scientists have found that a molecule known as growth and differentiation factor 10 (GDF10) is a key player in repair mechanisms following stroke. The findings suggest that GDF10 may be a potential therapy for recovery after stroke. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. “These findings help to elucidate the mechanisms of repair following stroke. Identifying this key protein further advances our knowledge of how the brain heals itself from the devastating effects of stroke, and may help to develop new therapeutic strategies to promote recovery,” said Francesca Bosetti, Ph.D., stroke program director at NINDS. Stroke can occur when a brain blood vessel becomes blocked, preventing nearby tissue from getting essential nutrients. When brain tissue is deprived of oxygen and nutrients, it begins to die. Once this occurs, repair mechanisms, such as axonal sprouting, are activated as the brain attempts to overcome the damage. During axonal sprouting, healthy neurons send out new projections (“sprouts”) that re-establish some of the connections lost or damaged during the stroke and form new ones, resulting in partial recovery. Before this study, it was unknown what triggered axonal sprouting. Previous studies suggested that GDF10 was involved in the early stages of axonal sprouting, but its exact role in the process was unclear. S. Thomas Carmichael, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles took a closer look at GDF10 to identify how it may contribute to axonal sprouting.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21576 - Posted: 10.28.2015

By Catherine Saint Louis People who work 55 hours or more per week have a 33 percent greater risk of stroke and a 13 percent greater risk of coronary heart disease than those working standard hours, researchers reported on Wednesday in the Lancet. The new analysis includes data on more than 600,000 individuals in Europe, the United States and Australia, and is the largest study thus far of the relationship between working hours and cardiovascular health. But the analysis was not designed to draw conclusions about what caused the increased risk and could not account for all relevant confounding factors. “Earlier studies have pointed to heart attacks as a risk of long working hours, but not stroke,” said Dr. Urban Janlert, a professor of public health at Umea University in Sweden, who wrote an accompanying editorial. “That’s surprising.” Mika Kivimaki, a professor of epidemiology at University College London, and his colleagues combined the results of multiple studies and tried to account for factors that might skew the results. In addition to culling data from published studies, the researchers also compiled unpublished information from public databases and asked authors of previous work for additional data. Dr. Steven Nissen, the chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, found the methodology unconvincing. “It’s based upon exclusively observational studies, many of which were unpublished,” and some never peer-reviewed, he said. Seventeen studies of stroke included 528,908 men and women who were tracked on average 7.2 years. Some 1,722 nonfatal and deadly strokes were recorded. After controlling for smoking, physical activity and high blood pressure and cholesterol, the researchers found a one-third greater risk of stroke among those workers who reported logging 55 or more hours weekly, compared with those who reported working the standard 35 to 40 hours. © 2015 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 21323 - Posted: 08.22.2015

A dipstick inserted into the brain can check its energy levels, just like checking oil levels in a car. The dipstick is already available and can save lives, according to some neuroscientists. “The goal is to save brain tissue,” says Elham Rostami of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Last month, Rostami and 47 others published guidelines about how and when to use the technique, known as brain microdialysis, in the hope of encouraging more hospitals to adopt it. The approach involves inserting a slim, 1-centimetre-long probe directly into the brain. It measures levels of chemicals in the fluid that bathes brain cells, including glucose, the brain’s main energy source. When used to monitor the brains of people in intensive care after a stroke or head injury, it warns doctors if glucose starts to dip – which can cause brain damage. The probe can theoretically monitor almost any molecule, but Rostami says the most useful parameters are glucose, which shows if there is a good blood supply, and lactate and pyruvate, two metabolites that indicate if brain cells are using the glucose to release energy. Although widely available, the device has so far mainly been used as a research tool rather than to guide treatment. Rostami believes her use of the probe helped save a woman’s life last year. The woman was in intensive care after a stroke involving bleeding on the surface of her brain. The probe revealed that although the bleeding had stopped, the woman’s brain glucose levels had fallen, probably caused by other blood vessels constricting. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 21270 - Posted: 08.05.2015

A panel of independent experts has decided that a clot-busting drug often used to treat strokes is "safe and effective". The UK medicines watchdog wanted the benefits and risks of alteplase to be analysed after concerns were raised about its safety. The panel concluded that the best time to use the drug is up to four and a half hours after the start of symptoms. But some other doctors are still not convinced by the evidence. Most strokes are caused by a clot blocking the flow of blood to the brain. Many patients are given the drug alteplase to break down and disperse the clot - a treatment known as thrombolysis. The independent expert panel, chaired by Prof Sir Ian Weller, said it had looked at all available data on alteplase and decided that the earlier the drug was given to patients, the greater the chance of a good outcome. Used up to four and a half hours after the onset of symptoms, the benefits of the drug were found to outweigh the risks. But it added that the benefits of using alteplase to treat strokes were "highly time-dependent" and, in a small number of people, there was a risk of haemorrhage. Prof Weller explained: "The evidence shows that for every 100 patients treated with alteplase, whilst there is an early risk of a fatal bleed in two patients, after three to six months, around 10 more in every 100 are disability-free when treated within three hours." © 2015 BBC.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21218 - Posted: 07.25.2015

The virtual reality arm appears to move faster and more accurately than the real arm Virtual reality could help stroke patients recover by "tricking" them into thinking their affected limb is more accurate than it really is. Researchers in Spain found that making the affected limb appear more effective on screen increased the chance the patient would use it in real life. This is important because stroke victims often underuse their affected limbs, making them even weaker. A stroke charity welcomed the study and called for more research. In the study of 20 stroke patients, researchers sometimes enhanced the virtual representation of the patient's affected limb, making it seem faster and more accurate, but without the patient's knowledge. After the episodes in which the limbs were made to seem more effective, the patients then went on to use them more, according to lead researcher Belen Rubio. "Surprisingly, only 10 minutes of enhancement was enough to induce significant changes in the amount of spontaneous use of the affected limb," said Mrs Rubio from the Laboratory of Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. "This therapy could create a virtuous circle of recovery, in which positive feedback, spontaneous arm use and motor performance can reinforce each other. Engaging patients in this ongoing cycle of spontaneous arm use, training and learning could produce a remarkable impact on their recovery process," she said. © 2015 BBC

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 21030 - Posted: 06.09.2015

By Lisa Sanders On Thursday, we challenged Well readers to figure out why a previously healthy 31-year-old woman suddenly began having strokes. I thought this was a particularly tough case – all the more so since I had never heard of the disease she was ultimately diagnosed with. Apparently I was not alone. Only a few dozen of the 400 plus readers who wrote in were able to make this difficult diagnosis. The correct diagnosis is: Susac’s syndrome The first person to identify this rare neurological disorder was Errol Levine, a retired radiologist from South Africa, now living in Santa Fe, N.M. The location of the stroke shown — in a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum — was a subtle clue, and Dr. Levine recalled reading of an autoimmune disease characterized by strokes in this unusual area of the brain. This is Dr. Levine’s second win. Well done, sir! Susac’s syndrome is a rare disorder first described in 1979 by Dr. John Susac, a neurologist in Winter Haven, Fla. Dr. Susac described two women, one 26 years old, the other 40, who he encountered within weeks of one another. Both had the same unusual triad of psychiatric symptoms suggestive of some type of brain inflammation, hearing loss, and patchy vision loss caused by blockages of the tiniest vessels of the retina known as branch retinal arteries. A few years later, Dr. Susac encountered two more cases and presented one of these at a meeting as a mystery diagnosis. The doctor who figured it out called the disorder Susac’s syndrome, and the name stuck. Seen primarily in young women, Susac’s is thought to be an autoimmune disorder in which antibodies, the foot soldiers of the immune system, mistakenly attack tissues in some of the smallest arteries in the brain. The inflammation of these small vessels blocks the flow of blood, causing tiny strokes. © 2015 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 21023 - Posted: 06.06.2015

By Smitha Mundasad Health reporter There has been a worrying rise in the number of working-age men and women having strokes, a charity has warned. In England in 2014 there were 6,221 hospital admissions for men aged 40-54 - a rise of 1,961 on 14 years earlier, a Stroke Association study shows. Experts said unhealthy lifestyles were partly to blame for the rise, though the growing population and changes to hospital practice also played a part. Overall the rate of strokes is going down in the UK, however. Researchers say based on their findings strokes should not be considered as a disease of the old. Strokes are caused by blood clots or bleeds to the brain and can lead to long-lasting disability. The majority occur in people aged over 65, and though rates are decreasing in this group, this report suggests growing numbers of younger people are at risk. Experts analysed national hospital admission data spanning 2000 to 2014. Trends for people in their 40s and early 50s appeared to be getting worse. In women aged 40-54, there were an extra 1,075 strokes recorded in 2014, compared with 2000. Experts said growing obesity levels, sedentary lives and unhealthy diets - which raise the risks of dangerous blood clots - all played a part. And they argued strokes among this age group had long-lasting personal and financial impacts on individuals and their families, as well as on the economy. Recovering patients can find it difficult to return to work and should have more support from employers, the report suggests. Jon Barrick, of the Stroke Association, said: "These figures show stroke can no longer be seen as a disease of older people. "There is an alarming increase in the numbers of people having a stroke in working age. © 2015 BBC.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 20912 - Posted: 05.12.2015

|By Rebecca Harrington It's best to treat the good with the bad, new medical insights into brain attacks suggest. Doctors are beginning to think the side of the brain opposite to a clot in stroke patients is just as important a target for treatment as the damaged tissue when it comes to a faster recovery. Only in the past few years have researchers discovered that the uninjured side of the brain becomes more active after a stroke to help its fallen neighbor. In some instances, it pumps out proteins that induce damaged neurons to begin repairs and others that trigger new blood vessels to form. It can even extend its own neurons across hemispheres to restore function. Current stroke treatments largely target the damaged tissue. “I think everyone thought, ‘The other side of the brain is working pretty well,’” says Stanford University neurologist Gary Steinberg. “‘Why don't we leave that alone?’” In light of the growing evidence that the healthy hemisphere provides aid naturally, however, doctors are now investigating how to boost its healing actions. One such drug, shepherded by Adviye Ergul of Georgia Regents University and Susan Fagan of the University of Georgia, activates receptors on uninjured tissue that trigger pathways to reduce harmful inflammation and support the growth of neurons and blood vessels on the side of the brain with the clot. The drug increases repair rates in rats that have experienced stroke—results described recently in the Journal of Hypertension—and Ergul and Fagan say the therapy could become available to humans in the next five years. © 2015 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 20835 - Posted: 04.23.2015

By Sandra G. Boodman A Braced by her partner, Suzanne Tobin shuffled back to her car parked in the cavernous garage at Johns Hopkins Hospital late on the evening of Oct. 22, 2013, distraught about what might happen next. Tobin, then 60, had been driven by her partner, James Rapp, from their Germantown home to the Hopkins ER in hopes that doctors there could determine what was causing her relentless deterioration. Three months earlier, Tobin had held a full-time job as a copy editor at AARP in the District. She spent an hour before work striding around the Mall for exercise. Now she could no longer walk unassisted, her speech was nearly unintelligible and her left hand was so weak she could no longer hold a book. Doctors in suburban Maryland had diagnosed a stroke — or possibly a series of strokes — but were unable to explain why Tobin kept getting worse by the week. Her neurologist counseled patience and offered to prescribe antidepressants, drugs that Tobin had told him she had taken for years. An occupational therapist she’d been seeing had expressed alarm; stroke patients tended to plateau or even improve over time, not to experience a steady downward spiral. “You need to get a new neurologist,” she advised Tobin. Tobin and Rapp decided their best bet was to head to Hopkins in Baltimore. But after 12 hours and a battery of tests, including a CT, MRI and other scans, emergency physicians sent Tobin home. They found no new stroke — an earlier MRI that Rapp had brought along appeared to show an old one — nor any other problem that would require immediate hospitalization. They advised her to follow up with her regular doctors.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 20823 - Posted: 04.21.2015

By Nicholas Bakalar Air pollution — even for just one day — significantly increases the risk of stroke, a large review of studies has found. Researchers pooled data from 103 studies involving 6.2 million stroke hospitalizations and deaths in 28 countries. The analysis, published online in BMJ, found that all types of pollution except ozone were associated with increased risk for stroke, and the higher the level of pollution, the more strokes there were. Daily increases in pollution from nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter were associated with corresponding increases in strokes and hospital admissions. The strongest associations were apparent on the day of exposure, but increases in particulate matter had longer-lasting effects. The exact reason for the effect is unclear, but studies have shown that air pollution can constrict blood vessels, increase blood pressure and increase the risk for blood clots. Other research has tied air pollution to a higher risk of heart attacks, stroke and other ills. The lead author, Dr. Anoop Shah, a lecturer in cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, said that there was little an individual can do when air pollution spikes. “If you’re elderly, or have co-morbid conditions, you should stay inside,” he said. But policies leading to cleaner air would have the greatest impact, he said. “It’s a question of getting cities and countries to change.” © 2015 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 20727 - Posted: 03.28.2015

By GINA KOLATA After three decades of failure, researchers have found a treatment that greatly improves the prognosis for people having the most severe and disabling strokes. By directly removing large blood clots blocking blood vessels in the brain, they can save brain tissue that would have otherwise died, enabling many to return to an independent life. The study, published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by researchers in the Netherlands, is being met with an outpouring of excitement. One reason the treatment worked, researchers suspect, is that doctors used a new type of snare to grab the clots. It is a stent, basically a small wire cage, on the end of a catheter that is inserted in the groin and threaded through an artery to the brain. When the tip of the catheter reaches the clot, the stent is opened and pushed into the clot. It snags the clot, allowing the doctor to withdraw the catheter and pull out the stent with the clot attached. About 630,000 Americans each year have strokes caused by clots blocking blood vessels in the brain. In about a third to half, the clot is in a large vessel, which has potentially devastating consequences. People with smaller clots are helped by the lifesaving drug tPA, which dissolves them. But for those with big clots, tPA often does not help. Until now, no other treatments had been shown to work. One in five patients who had tPA alone recovered enough to return to living independently. But one in three who also had their clot removed directly were able to take care of themselves after their stroke. And that, said Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, director of the Duke Stroke Center, is “a significant and meaningful improvement in what people are able to do.” © 2014 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 20429 - Posted: 12.18.2014