By Gary Stix SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.-- We may all have a little bit of Narcissus in us. If the mythological figure were a modern-day pretty boy—say a Brad Pitt or a Matt Damon--a neuroscientist might interpret the infatuation with self not as a tragic flaw, but rather as a normal manifestation of the functioning of the superior temporal sulcus, the inferior frontal gyrus or some other brain structure lifted straight out of TV's Grey’s Anatomy. Like Narcissus, neuroscientists have found that our own faces capture our rapt attention. We recognize emotions from sadness to disgust more readily on our own faces than in the same expressions made by others. And when we don’t, something may be very wrong. This insight, presented yesterday at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting here, seems fairly obvious at first glance. But Bhismadev Chakrabarti, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, wondered about it when he started his study. After all, most of us don’t spend the majority of our time looking in the mirror. In fact, we pass most of our days looking at other people and trying to determine, for instance, if they're frowning at us or simply getting ready to sneeze. To find the answer, Chakrabarti and colleagues took photos of 34 women who feigned facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, disgust and fear. The women did not see the photos until several weeks later when they were shown a mix of pix including those as well as photos of strangers. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 12676 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Pat Shellenbarger GRAND RAPIDS -- Even before examining Brian Key's eyes, Dr. Christopher Glisson was sure the problem was not in his eyes, but in his brain. A tumor on the pituitary gland likely was pressing on the optic nerves, he believed, narrowing the high school senior's peripheral vision. Other doctors suspected a tumor, but it was Glisson's specialized training as a neuro-ophthalmologist that helped him find it. Yet he and his kind are an endangered species in the medical field, members of a sub-specialty that is losing practitioners because of the relatively low pay. They are victims of a health insurance system that rewards doctors who perform a lot of procedures and penalizes those who spend much time with their patients. "You can certainly make a lot more money," Glisson said. "To me, that's not where I thought my talents lie." As President Barack Obama is calling for health care reform, many critics say one thing that must change is the skewed payment system that encourages doctors to go into more lucrative specialties. Because of the relatively lower pay, there is a shortage of primary-care doctors and other specialists who can help patients avoid serious -- and costly -- medical problems. Glisson sees fewer patients in an average day than most doctors, but he spends an hour or more with each. © 2008 Michigan Online LLC.

Keyword: Vision; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12675 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers say taking a special vitamin supplement during pregnancy could prevent hydrocephalus - one of the most common birth brain defects. Tests on rats showed a combination of folates dramatically reduced the rates of hydrocephalus - in which fluids build up in the brain's chambers. They even seemed to work after the condition had started to develop. But the work, published in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, is still at an early stage. The team from the universities of Manchester and Lancaster hope to get permission to start clinical trials in pregnant women with babies diagnosed with hydrocephalus. The supplement itself is not currently available, so they are also seeking the support of a pharmaceutical company willing to produce it as a pill. At present hydrocephalus affects one in 1,000 live births. There is no satisfactory treatment for it other than surgical diversion of the fluid through a tube, known as a shunt, from the brain to the abdomen or heart. However, shunts are permanent and prone to infection and blockage, which means patients may require several operations during their lifetime. Most of those with by the condition have impaired mental and physical ability, although the effects can vary widely. The team also say they have shown it is the chemical composition of cerebrospinal fluid - rather than the fluid itself putting pressure on the brain - which causes the problems. Lead researcher Jaleel Miyan said: "Cerebrospinal fluid is not a liquid which simply cushions the brain and carries chemicals around it. It is actively produced and transported and plays an essential biological role in developing the brain". The combination of supplements appeared to stimulate this process. (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 12674 - Posted: 03.23.2009

By Liz Kowalczyk Lawyers for Dr. Joseph Biederman, a leading Harvard child psychiatrist, are asking a judge to seal his testimony and accompanying documents in a huge multistate lawsuit, saying they "could be immensely damaging to him, both personally and professionally." Biederman has emerged as a key witness in a lawsuit brought on behalf of more than 2,000 patients, including children, who contend that they have been injured by psychiatric drugs known as atypical antipsychotics. Biederman, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital, is not a defendant in the case, but the plaintiffs' lawyers have submitted more than two dozen documents aiming to present him as an example of how drug companies and researchers cooperated to boost "off label" prescribing of drugs for purposes that go beyond federally approved uses, for example, prescribing adult medications to children. Such prescribing is permitted, but marketing for "off label" uses is not. The psychiatrist testified in the case in February, and a New Jersey judge plans to hear a request from Biederman's attorneys next week to make that testimony and attached exhibits confidential, lawyers on both sides said. Biederman's attorney, Peter Spivack, said he could not comment on the motion to seal because he did not have permission from his client to speak to the news media. The attached documents include PowerPoint presentations apparently given by Biederman to various groups about research being done at the MGH-Johnson & Johnson Center for the Study of Pediatric Psychopathology, which he ran from 2002 to 2006. Court documents say the company gave at least $700,000 to the center. © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 12673 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It all started with Cheerios. Jonah Lehrer was once again standing in a supermarket aisle, crippled by the thought of which variety of whole-oat goodness to buy: honey nut or apple cinnamon. “It was an embarrassing waste of time,” he says, “and yet it happened to me all the time.” Lehrer decided that he had to figure out what was going on inside his brain when he contemplated such issues. And his curiosity transcended breakfast. How did the brain process picking a house? Choosing stocks? Split-second, life-or-death decisions? These questions led the author on a path from the epistemological roots of rational versus emotionally driven thinking to leveraging the tools of modern-day neuroscience to look inside the brain and see how it actually thinks. The result is his second book, How We Decide, a real-world exploration of the brain’s capacity for decision making. With it, Lehrer shows how different decisions require different mental tools; that rational thought isn’t always the answer; and that understanding how our brain processes information can improve the thousands of choices, big and small, we make every day. Lehrer, who is editor at large for Seed magazine, sat down with senior editor Greg Boustead to discuss the decision-making skills of pilots and world leaders, the problem with certainty, and the best way to handle a Stephen Colbert interview (“don’t try to be funny”). Seed: In How We Decide you talk about pilots extensively. During your research, you worked in flight simulators to get a feel for making critical decisions under duress. Jonah Lehrer: Yes, they’re unbelievably realistic. And I spent time with pilots to try to understand how they think. ©2005-2009 Seed Media Group LLC.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 12672 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bruce Bower Dogs are lousy conversationalists and can’t write worth a lick. But don’t sell the family pooch short when it comes to grasping subtle references in human communication, a new study suggests. Border collies quickly realize that their owners want them to fetch a toy from another room when shown a full-size or miniature replica of the desired item and given a command to “bring it here,” say biological psychologist Juliane Kaminski of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and her colleagues. Even a photograph of a toy works with some dogs as a signal to fetch that toy from an unseen location, the researchers report in an upcoming issue of Developmental Science. Three dogs already trained to fetch objects succeeded on both replica tasks right away. Two untrained dogs got the hang of replica requests after a bit of practice. “The most reasonable interpretation of dogs’ success in the replica tasks is that they understood that by showing a replica, a human was trying to communicate something to them,” Kaminski says. Dogs evolved a feel for how people communicate as a result of living in human settlements for thousands of years, she proposes. Earlier studies have found that chimps, dolphins and other nonhuman animals have great difficulty retrieving objects after being shown replicas of those objects, even after many trials. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 12671 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Two studies have pinpointed a single gene as key to the development and treatment of schizophrenia. A US team from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute found that a mutated version of the DISC1 gene disrupts the growth and development of brain cells. And a team from the University of Edinburgh showed that the gene affects how patients respond to treatment. Both studies, published in the journals PLoS One and Cell, raise hopes of more effective treatment for schizophrenia. Each family member diagnosed with mental illness also carried a mutated copy of DISC1 The condition is a common form of mental illness, affecting up to 1% of adults worldwide. Symptoms tend to appear in late adolescence or early adulthood, and can include delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and depression. The US team showed that DISC1 plays a key role in normal brain development and the growth of individual neurons. However, carrying the wrong version of the gene can make this process go awry. Working on mice, they showed that DISC1 was active, both in cells taken from embryos and in brain stem cells taken from adult mice. When DISC1 levels were reduced in adult mice their brain cells failed to divide, and the animals developed symptoms mimicking schizophrenia in humans. Further tests showed that DISC1 acts like lithium, a drug commonly prescribed as mood stabiliser to patients with mental illness, inhibiting the action of a key chemical in the brain. When mice with depressed levels of DISC1 were treated with this chemical, their symptoms began to improve. Lead researcher Dr Li-Heui Tsai said: "We need to get a handle on the genetics of schizophrenia, but now we know how DISC1 probably contributes to the disorder, which is a big step." (C) BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12670 - Posted: 03.21.2009

By David Brown Natasha Richardson, the British actress who fell during a ski lesson on Monday and later in the day lapsed into a coma, died of a large blood clot compressing her brain, New York City's medical examiner said yesterday. The bleeding that led to the clot was caused by "blunt impact to the head," according to the official report, which also labeled the death an accident. The formal name for the condition is "epidural hematoma." It is usually the result of bleeding from arteries torn when the skull is struck hard, often on the temple where the bone is thinnest. Arterial hemorrhage inside the skull is a potential catastrophe. Each heartbeat pumps blood under high pressure into a confined space, compressing the brain tissue. "It is the most feared, treatable problem in neurosurgery," said Gail Rosseau, chief of surgery at the Neurologic and Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago. "These are the patients who 'talk and die.' " If the condition is recognized in time, a surgeon can drill a hole through the skull or cut away a piece of it, remove the clot and relieve the pressure. This often results in complete recovery. Although many details of Richardson's accident have not been made public, she apparently demonstrated a "lucid interval" typical of many traumatic epidural hematomas -- a period soon after the impact when the victim is alert and feels well that is followed by a rapid decline into unconsciousness. © 2009 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 12669 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE By electrically stimulating the spinal cords of rodents, scientists have reversed some of the worst symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. As long as a mild current flows up their spines and into their brains, the animals regain the ability to scamper around their cages, as if they were normal. The therapy, described in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, is a potential alternative to direct stimulation, which requires risky and invasive surgery to implant electrodes deep in the brain, researchers said. Only 30 percent of severely impaired Parkinson’s patients qualify for the operation. Spinal cord stimulation would be less invasive and inherently safer, and it would reduce the amount of drugs needed to treat the disease, said the report’s lead author, Dr. Miguel A. L. Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke. Dr. Nicolelis added that the procedure was now being tested on monkeys, and “if it succeeds, human clinical trials could begin in the next few years.” An expert on stimulation theories who was not involved in the research, Dr. Rodolfo Llinás, said the treatment “makes good sense,” but he added: “How successfully it will translate to humans is an important issue. The human spinal cord is much more complex than the rodent counterpart, and long-term stimulation might result in nasty secondary effects.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 12668 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bruce Bower Cameroon’s Mafa farmers don’t know U2 from YouTube, and that’s how they like it. So it comes as a scientific revelation that, according to a new study, these Africans who are cocooned from Western culture recognize expressions of happiness, sadness and fear in the same musical passages that Westerners do. This finding provides the first solid evidence for a universal human ability to distinguish basic emotions in music, asserts a team led by cognitive scientist Thomas Fritz of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. “I was quite amazed that the Mafa accurately categorized basic emotions in pieces of Western music on the first listen,” Fritz says. His team’s investigation indicates that Mafa and Western listeners similarly derive emotional meaning from the tempo and key of musical passages. Both groups tended to classify fast-paced pieces as happy and slow ones as scared or fearful, and mostly agreed on which passages were sad, but assigned no particular tempo with them. Mafa and Westerners also generally regarded major-key pieces as happy, minor-key excerpts as fearful and passages with an indeterminate key as sad. Mafa music exclusively expresses joy and happiness. Village revelers blow fervently through flutes made of iron, clay and wax at various rituals, including a harvest event. No word exists in the Mafa language for music, which is viewed as an inseparable element of ritual. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Hearing; Emotions
Link ID: 12667 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Dani Cooper -- Female finches from Northern Australia are controlling the sex of their offspring, according to the hair color of their male counterpart. The finding, published today in the journal Science, is one of the first to clearly show that birds are capable of biasing the sex of their offspring to overcome genetic weaknesses. Lead author Sarah Pryke, of the Department of Brain Behavior and Evolution at Macquarie University in Sydney, admits the mechanism by which the birds do this is not yet known. The endangered Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae), which is found in the northern savanna's of Australia, can have either black or red heads. Pryke said some genetic incompatibility between the black and red-headed birds results in high mortality in the offspring when birds of different head colors mate. With female offspring this mortality rate can be as much as 80 percent higher than in a same-head color pairing. Sons in a mixed pairing have a 40 percent mortality rate. Pryke found that if the female mates with a finch of different head color, she attempts to overcome this genetic incompatability by over-producing sons -- as many as four males to one female. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 12666 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway A long-hyped technology that lets scientists activate brain cells with flashes of light is beginning to deliver results that may extend far beyond neuroscience labs. This week, a team of California scientists used the technology to explain a hit-and-miss treatment for Parkinson's disease, as well as show how almost any biological cell could be harnessed with light. "There's a new era of being able to re-engineer systems in the body so that they can be controlled by light," says Richard Kramer, a neurobiologist at the University of California in Berkeley, not involved in the work. "This is a big step in that direction." Deep brain stimulation delivers electrical jolts to misfiring brain cells and has improved quality of life for some Parkinson's patients but not others. It's been completely unclear how it works, and that has impaired effort to generalise it to other diseases and to all patients, says Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist at Stanford University in California. Using light-controlled brain cells in rodents, Deisseroth's team discovered a set of cells that may be responsible for the palliative effects of the therapy. Targeting these neurons could offer new, less-invasive treatments for the debilitating condition, he says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 12665 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by A C Grayling AFTER John Locke published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690, he sent copies to various savants of his acquaintance, asking for comments and in particular for advice on whether he had left out anything essential - for if so, he could add it to a second edition. His correspondent William Molyneaux of Dublin replied that Locke needed to say something about personal identity: that is, what makes a person the same person throughout their life. Belief in the idea of a substantial soul - a "you" that is separate from your body - was waning. In the absence of this metaphysical entity as a convenience for underpinning personal identity, what, asked Molyneaux, makes the retired general continuous with the eager subaltern of 40 years before, and he with the red-cheeked baby in his nurse's arms 20 years before that? In response, Locke added a chapter to his second edition which instantly caused a storm of controversy and has been famous ever since in the annals of philosophy. In that chapter Locke argued that a person's identity over time resides in their consciousness (he coined this term, and here introduced it to the English language) of being the same self at a later time as at an earlier, and that the mechanism that makes this possible is memory. Whereas a stone is the same stone over time because it is the very same lump of matter - or almost, allowing for erosion - and an oak tree is identical with its originating acorn because it is the same continuous organisation of matter, a person is only the same through time if he or she is self-aware of being so. Memory loss interrupts identity, and complete loss of memory is therefore loss of the self. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12664 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists in Scotland say they may have found what causes some Alzheimer's patients to develop epilepsy. The amyloid protein, which forms in clumps in patients' brains, makes nerve cells too sensitive and prone to seizures, tests in mice suggest. The cells short-circuit and fire too many electrical signals, the Journal of Neuroscience reports. If true in humans too, which the experts say is likely, it may mean some patients will need different drugs. A mainstay of treatment for Alzheimer's is a class of drugs called the cholinesterase inhibitors. They work by stopping the breakdown of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter associated with memory. But an unwanted effect is that this can also increase a person's susceptibility to seizures. However, medication to control seizures can also make Alzheimer's symptoms worse. A third of Alzheimer's patients have some degree of epilepsy, posing a treatment dilemma for doctors. Researcher Professor Tibor Harkany, of the University of Aberdeen, said he hoped his findings would lead to the discovery of new drugs to treat both problems with fewer side-effects. He said: "We have shown for the first time the actual cellular process that links epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease. This provides us with a new wave of understanding in Alzheimer's disease. Our findings could lead to a rethink of the type of drugs that are given to patients with Alzheimer's disease. It should be possible to design drugs to tackle the two problems of seizures and cognition at the cellular level because both share common mechanisms." (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers; Epilepsy
Link ID: 12663 - Posted: 03.19.2009

By Shankar Vedantam The study would come to be called "cursed," but it started out just as Study 15. It was a long-term trial of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The common wisdom in psychiatric circles was that newer drugs were far better than older drugs, but Study 15's results suggested otherwise. As a result, newly unearthed documents show, Study 15 suffered the same fate as many industry-sponsored trials that yield data drugmakers don't like: It got buried. It took eight years before a taxpayer-funded study rediscovered what Study 15 had found -- and raised serious concerns about an entire new class of expensive drugs. Study 15 was silenced in 1997, the same year Seroquel was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat schizophrenia. The drug went on to be prescribed to hundreds of thousands of patients around the world and has earned billions for London-based AstraZeneca International -- including nearly $12 billion in the past three years. The results of Study 15 were never published or shared with doctors, even as less rigorous studies that came up with positive results for Seroquel were published and used in marketing campaigns aimed at physicians and in television ads aimed at consumers. The results of Study 15 were provided only to the Food and Drug Administration -- and the agency has strenuously maintained that it does not have the authority to place such studies in the public domain. © 2009 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 12662 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Janet Raloff A little over a week ago I wrote a two-parter on software that has uncovered hundreds of instances of apparent plagiarism in biomedical science. Copycatting someone else’s work is lazy at best; more likely it’s just amoral. But the current issue of Anesthesiology News highlights an even more egregious type of fraud: blatant fabrication of medical data. In two investigative news stories, Adam Marcus describes the case against anesthesiologist Scott S. Reuben. This prominent Massachusetts pain researcher is accused of faking data that served as the basis for a minimum of 21 published medical studies. At least plagiarists “borrow” data that are ostensibly real and therefore might have some medical validity. Fabricated data benefit no one but the author who is looking to bolster his reputation by fattening his portfolio of published studies. Indeed, the potential for harm in seeding fake findings within the medical journals is substantial. They encourage an undue belief by clinicians that certain treatments will — or will not — help patients. In Reuben’s case, his publications focused on the purported benefits in prescribing non-opiate painkillers, such as celecoxib (sold as Celebrex), a drug that inhibits cyclooxygenase-2, an enzyme that triggers an inflammatory cascade of changes in the body. His studies claimed it worked well, particularly when paired with a neuropathic pain medicine pregabalin (sold as Lyrica). But these Pfizer drugs are not the only ones that Reuben claimed performed well in place of more powerful old-line painkillers. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 12661 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Ker Than Dolphins and their close relatives that use sound to navigate can "steer" their sonar beams by merging two sound pulses together, a new study suggests. "It's the acoustic equivalent of moving your eyes without moving your head," says marine biologist Marc Lammers of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii, Kaneohe. This ability may be unique in the animal kingdom, scientists say. Biologists have long known that odontocetes, or "toothed whales," a group that includes sperm whales, beluga whales, and dolphins, navigate and hunt using sonar. Like bats, they emit high-frequency clicks that bounce off objects and then interpret the echoes. Until recently, biologists believed that sonar was a bit like a pair of headlights--it could be aimed only in the direction in which the creature's head was pointed. But in 2008, Patrick Moore of Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, a U.S. Navy research facility in San Diego, California, and colleagues found that bottlenose dolphins can sweep their echolocation beams to the left and right by about 20° without moving their heads. What Moore's team couldn't determine was just how the animals were doing it. One idea was that the dolphin manipulates a large fatty organ in its head called the melon to aim the beam. Alternatively, scientists posited that the dolphin was producing two sonar clicks separated by a slight time delay. This would cancel frequencies in certain regions of space but enhance them in others, effectively channeling the sound in a direction other than straight ahead. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 12660 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway If the deeply devout seem less self-doubting than others, perhaps it's because religion helps them shrug off mistakes. So say researchers who found religious people exhibit lower activity than non-believers in a brain region linked to anxiety when erring on a simple test. "Religion offers an interpretative framework to understand the world. It lets you know when to act, how to act, and what to do in specific situation," says Michael Inzlicht, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, who led the new study. "It provides a kind of blueprint on how to interact with the world." Religion – and perhaps other strongly held belief systems – buffer against second-guessing decisions, he says. Inzlicht's team tested 50 university students from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. Christians made up most participants, but his team also tested Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. With a technique that gauges brain activity via dozens of electrodes on the scalp called electroencephalography (EEG), Inzlicht's team focused on action in a small brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions; Stress
Link ID: 12659 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have made a significant step forward in developing a test to help diagnose the early stages of Alzheimer's disease sooner and more accurately by measuring two biomarkers — tau and beta-amyloid proteins — in cerebrospinal fluid. In a new report, researchers from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) not only confirmed that certain changes in biomarker levels in cerebrospinal fluid may signal the onset of mild Alzheimer's, but also established a method and standard of testing for these biomarkers. ADNI is a research partnership supported primarily by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, with private sector support through the Foundation for NIH, seeking to find neuroimaging and biomarker tests that can detect Alzheimer's disease progression and measure the effectiveness of potential therapies. These are the first cerebrospinal fluid biomarker findings to be reported by ADNI, a $60-million, five-year research program launched in 2004 to observe and track changes in some 800 older people in the United States and Canada with normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — a condition that often precedes Alzheimer's — or the early stages of Alzheimer's. The ADNI Biomarker Core at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine in Philadelphia, headed by Leslie M. Shaw, Ph.D., and John Q. Trojanowski, MD., Ph.D., led the study, which is reported online March 17 in the Annals of Neurology. "Research indicates that Alzheimer's pathology causes changes in the brain some 10 to 20 years before any symptoms appear," said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. "This work gives researchers a systematic and reliable method to measure changes in cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers that may herald the onset of Alzheimer's disease."

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 12658 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. After her stroke, Francine V. Corso, a software engineer who worked on NASA’s lunar lander, was housebound from 1992 to 2001. Her left arm was twisted up near her neck, making it difficult to pull on a blouse, and her fingers curled so rigidly that her nails buried themselves in her palm. When she finally learned to rise from her wheelchair, her contorted left leg had the so-called horse gait of many brain-injury victims — she stepped toe-downward, and then fought to keep her foot from rolling over. Now, with injections of botulinum toxin every three months, she says, “I’m completely transformed — I drive, I volunteer, I take art classes.” Her fingers are so relaxed that a manicurist can lacquer her nails red. Botulinum toxin, the wrinkle smoother best known by the brand name Botox, has many medical uses, some official and some off label. It helps dystonia victims regain control of spasming muscles, actors who struggle with flop sweat slow down the flow, and children with clubfoot avoid surgery. Its use in stroke victims is still off label — that is, it is not approved for that purpose by the Food and Drug Administration. But it is so widely accepted that Medicare and other insurers will usually reimburse for its use. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 12657 - Posted: 06.24.2010