In the fight against brain damage caused by stroke, researchers have turned to an unlikely source of inspiration: hibernating ground squirrels. While the animals’ brains experience dramatically reduced blood flow during hibernation, just like human patients after a certain type of stroke, the squirrels emerge from their extended naps suffering no ill effects. Now, a team of NIH-funded scientists has identified a potential drug that could grant the same resilience to the brains of ischemic stroke patients by mimicking the cellular changes that protect the brains of those animals. The study was published in The FASEB Journal, the official journal of the Foundation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. “For decades scientists have been searching for an effective brain-protecting stroke therapy to no avail. If the compound identified in this study successfully reduces tissue death and improves recovery in further experiments, it could lead to new approaches for preserving brain cells after an ischemic stroke,” said Francesca Bosetti, Ph.D., Pharm.D., program director at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). An ischemic stroke occurs when a clot cuts off blood flow to part of the brain, depriving those cells of oxygen and nutrients like the blood sugar glucose that they need to survive. Nearly 800,000 Americans experience a stroke every year and 87 percent of those are ischemic strokes. Currently, the only way to minimize stroke-induced cell death is to remove the clot as soon as possible. A treatment to help brain cells survive a stroke-induced lack of oxygen and glucose could dramatically improve patient outcomes, but no such neuroprotective agents for stroke patients exist.

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: 24339 - Posted: 11.20.2017

Nick Fraser I was just finishing a talk about documentaries I was giving in Soho. I’d been asked a question about why so many films are seriously depressing. I remember that I talked about the great neurosurgeon Henry Marsh and the documentary about him, The English Surgeon. The film followed him to Ukraine as he helped and taught the local surgeons, who often resorted to using rusty domestic power tools to work on their patients’ skulls. I’d talked about him for some time, enthusiastically explaining how awed Henry said he felt every time he opened a patient’s head, and about how beautiful the brain is. I wanted to say more – but suddenly I sat down, and couldn’t say or think anything. Something had happened to me. I had gone into a different world of not making sense. I was taken by ambulance to University College hospital and given a head CT scan. There was a blood clot on my brain. I’d had a stroke, a brain attack. Time is all-important to stroke patients, and fortunately I was within the time frame to be given serious clot-busting drugs. There was something else they could do, the doctor said, a procedure called a thrombectomy. UCH offered the procedure up until 6pm. The time was then around 8pm, but the doctor heroically fought through NHS protocols and secured me a trip to St George’s hospital in south-west London, the only UK location open 24/7 for thrombectomies. I was lucky. I remember meeting the neuro-radiologist who, after putting me under mild sedation, performed the extraordinary procedure that involved sending a very thin wire from my groin to my brain, and removing one small clot and one larger one from the left side of my brain. I could understand the details of the operation, but I couldn’t say anything. I wondered if I would be all right. © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited o

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 24263 - Posted: 10.30.2017

While immune cells called neutrophils are known to act as infantry in the body’s war on germs, a National Institutes of Health-funded study suggests they can act as medics as well. By studying rodents, researchers showed that instead of attacking germs, some neutrophils may help heal the brain after an intracerebral hemorrhage, a form of stroke caused by ruptured blood vessels. The study suggests that two neutrophil-related proteins may play critical roles in protecting the brain from stroke-induced damage and could be used as treatments for intracerebral hemorrhage. “Intracerebral hemorrhage is a damaging and often fatal form of stroke for which there are no effective medicines,” said Jaroslaw Aronowski, M.D., Ph.D., professor, department of neurology, at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and senior author of the study published in Nature Communications. “Our results are a hopeful first step towards developing a treatment for this devastating form of stroke.” Accounting for 10 to 15 percent of all strokes, intracerebral hemorrhages happen when blood vessels rupture and leak blood into the brain, often leading to death or long-term disability. Chronic high blood pressure is the leading risk factor for these types of strokes. The initial phase of damage appears to be caused by the pressure of blood leaking into the brain. Over time, further damage may be caused by the accumulation of toxic levels of blood products, infiltrating immune cells, and swelling. Decades of research suggest that neutrophils are some of the earliest immune cells to respond to a hemorrhage, and that they may both harm and heal the brain.

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: 24090 - Posted: 09.21.2017

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR The incidence of stroke has declined in recent years, but only in men. Researchers studied stroke incidence in four periods from 1993 to 2010 in five counties in Ohio and Kentucky. There were 7,710 strokes all together, 57.2 percent of them in women. After adjusting for age and race, they found that stroke incidence in men had decreased to 192 per hundred thousand men in 2010, down from 263 in 1993–94. But for women the incidence was 198 per hundred thousand in 2010, down from 217 in 1993–94, a statistically insignificant change. The study is in Neurology. Most of the difference was in ischemic stroke, the most common cause, resulting from a blocked blood vessel supplying blood to the brain. No one knows why there has been no improvement in women, but the lead author, Dr. Tracy E. Madsen, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Brown, said that some risk factors have a stronger effect in women than in men. Risk factors for stroke include high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and smoking. “Maybe we’re not controlling risk factors to the same extent in women. Or maybe there’s a biological difference in the way these risk factors cause strokes in men versus women.” In any case, Dr. Madsen said, “It’s important for women to know they are at risk. Stroke has been considered a male disease, but we know that it is very prevalent in women and has a high risk of disability and death.” © 2017 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 23939 - Posted: 08.10.2017

By Dina Fine Maron Not all of Mitchell Elkind’s stroke patients are on social security. In recent years he has treated devastating attacks in people as young as 18. And he is not alone. A growing body of research indicates strokes among U.S. millennials—ages 18 to 34—have soared in recent years. But an analysis by Scientific American has revealed significant differences in where these strokes are occurring, depending both on region and whether people live in rural or urban settings. The investigation, which used data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), was reviewed by five stroke experts and found that the West and Midwest have seen especially worrisome increases among younger adults. Moreover, large cities appear to have seen bigger increases than rural areas. The analysis employed hospital discharge data from 2003 to 2012 from the AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) database. The findings align with earlier studies that pointed to nationwide increases in strokes in this age group: In a study published earlier this year in JAMA Neurology, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that in a nine-year span from 2003 to 2012 there was a 32 percent spike in strokes among 18- to 34-year-old women and a 15 percent increase for men in the same range. Scientific American’s analysis sought to dig deeper into the data by exploring whether the stroke trend differed by location. © 2017 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23788 - Posted: 06.29.2017

By Amina Zafar, CBC News Senator Murray Sinclair suffered a mild stroke 10 years ago, while he was still serving as a justice in Manitoba. He got swift treatment, but says for weeks after even simple tasks left him exhausted. It's a hidden issue many stroke survivors experience, according to a new report. A stroke happens in about one in 10,000 adults under the age of 64, the group says. Sinclair, who experienced his stroke in 2007 at the age of 56, recalls waking up feeling dizzy and fuzzy headed. He had trouble getting into his robes for court and found he was bumping into a desk and doorway. Typing with his left hand was also difficult. Sinclair chalked it up to lack of sleep. After court, he called his family doctor in Winnipeg. The doctor performed a few co-ordination tests, immediately administered Aspirin and sent him to the emergency department where he was diagnosed, treated and released that night with medication and follow-up appointments arranged. "For several weeks thereafter whenever I would do something, if I would just go for a walk or if I would go outside and try to cut the grass, which I couldn't, I would just be too exhausted to finish a task. Or after I'd done a small task I'd just need to lay down or sit down," he recalled in an interview. "Even writing and reading were problematic for a while." ©2017 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23715 - Posted: 06.07.2017

By GINA KOLATA Researchers have traced the cause of a baffling brain disorder to a surprising source: a particular type of bacteria living in the gut. Scientists increasingly suspect that the body’s vast community of bacteria — the microbiome — may play a role in the development of a wide variety of diseases, from obesity to perhaps even autism. The new study, published on Wednesday in Nature, is among the first to suggest convincingly that these bacteria may initiate disease in seemingly unrelated organs, and in completely unexpected ways. Researchers “need to be thinking more broadly about the indirect role of the microbiome” in influencing even diseases that have no obvious link to the gut, said Dr. David Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. The researchers studied hereditary cerebral cavernous malformations — blood-filled bubbles that protrude from veins in the brain and can leak blood or burst at any time. The findings do not point to a cure, but they do suggest a way to prevent these brain defects in children who inherit a mutated gene that can cause them. Researchers warned, though, that it is too soon to say whether the potential treatment — antibiotics, followed by a fecal transplant — will work. “Caution, caution, caution,” urged Dr. Mark Ginsberg, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the new study. Still, he added, “The findings are very convincing.” When Dr. Mark Kahn, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, began this work, the microbiome was the last thing on his mind. © 2017 The New York Times Company

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: 23603 - Posted: 05.11.2017

Irina Zhorov On July 17, 2014 Kurt Hinrichs, of Gladstone, Mo., went to bed early. As often happens, he woke in the middle of the night. When he tried to get out of bed, he crashed to the floor, which woke his wife, Alice. "At first it was like, 'What's going on?' " Alice says. "Are you dreaming? Are you sleepwalking?" Kurt wasn't responding to anything Alice asked him, so she called 911. "I [was] thinking, 'this is a nightmare,' " Kurt says. By the time the ambulance arrived, just a few minutes later, Kurt wasn't speaking and his entire right side was paralyzed. Paramedics recognized that Kurt was having a stroke. When they wheeled Kurt out of the house, Alice thought he might never come home again. And if he did, he would be bedridden or in a wheelchair. "I really didn't have a lot of hope that my husband would be normal again, ever," she says. Speeding towards St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., Kurt realized this was no nightmare. He was awake, "but there was something major and massively wrong with me," Kurt says. About 800,000 people suffer strokes every year in the U.S. Most of them are ischemic strokes, caused by a clot which blocks a vessel supplying blood to the brain. If blood can't reach the brain, cells are deprived of oxygen and start to die. © 2017 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23557 - Posted: 05.01.2017

By Vicky Hallett Anything can happen while you’re performing karaoke at a dive bar in Scotland. As Lauren Marks found out 10 years ago at age 27, that includes having an aneurysm rupture in your brain. After being rushed to the hospital, the American actress/writer underwent emergency surgery that saved her life. But she lost two things that night: a single black high heel and much of her ability to use language. “A Stitch of Time,” her memoir that focuses on the year that followed, offers a deeply personal — and often surprising — perspective on aphasia, the medical term for this kind of communication disorder. The initial sensation, which Marks describes as “The Quiet,” was pleasurable. “The smallest of activities would enthrall me,” she writes. “Dressing myself, I was awed by the orbital distance between cloth and flesh. Brushing my teeth, I was enchanted by the stiffness of the bristles and the sponginess of my gums.” The Quiet, she explains, was what temporarily replaced her inner monologue. It was as muted as her external speech, which was initially limited to about 40 words. Beginning soon after she was stricken, Marks kept a journal, which she describes as initially “this confetti of fractured words.” Today, Marks can’t imagine what compelled her to scribble down “cathrene prussia horse-donk.” On the same page, she also wrote “speshul,” “Tibet” and “chorus.” © 1996-2017 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23556 - Posted: 05.01.2017

By Dave A. Chokshi, In medicine, we speak of “seeing patients” when we are rounding in the hospital or caring for those who come to our clinics. But what about those people who may be sick but do not seek care? What is our responsibility to the patients we do not see? This question takes on greater urgency in the current political climate, as patients face the threat of losing health insurance. Renewed efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act leave millions wondering whether they will be covered. For me, as a physician practicing in the safety net, abstract numbers evoke the very real stories of my uninsured patients. One of my patients, whom I’ll call Elsa, had not seen a doctor since immigrating to the United States 15 years ago. That abruptly changed one morning: She awoke to find the room spinning around her and, terrifyingly, she could not articulate the words to explain to her husband what was going on. She was having a stroke. There are many reasons that patients like Elsa may not seek care – until they have no choice. Although she felt no symptoms before her stroke, Elsa was one of about 13 million U.S. adults with undiagnosed high blood pressure. I wondered if making her aware of her blood pressure would have been enough to avoid her suffering. But even if high blood pressure may sit atop the list of problems I write out, from his or her perspective it may not crack the top five. Food security, job stability, child care and affordable housing understandably feel more urgent. Time and again, I have learned that taking care of my patients starts by trying to walk a mile in their shoes. © 2017 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 12: Psychopathology: The Biology of Behavioral Disorders
Link ID: 23555 - Posted: 05.01.2017

By Jia Naqvi The rate of stroke among young people has apparently been rising steadily since 1995, according to a study published this week. Hospitalization rates for stroke increased for women between the ages of 18 and 44, and nearly doubled for men in that age range from 1995 through 2012. Using more-detailed data for 2003 through 2012, the researchers found that rates of hospitalizations for acute ischemic stroke increased by nearly 42 percent for men 35 to 44, while rates for women of the same age group increased by 30 percent over the same time, the study published in the JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Across all adults, including those in older age ranges, stroke was the fifth leading cause of death in 2013. Overall mortality rates from strokes have significantly decreased over the past 50 years due to multiple factors, including better treatment for hypertension and increased use of aspirin, even as incidence of acute ischemic stroke among young adults has been on the rise. The study also looked at stroke risk factors and whether there were any changes in their prevalence from 2003 to 2012. The likelihood of having three or more of five common risk factors — diabetes, hypertension, lipid disorders, obesity and tobacco use — doubled in men and women hospitalized for acute ischemic strokes. © 1996-2017 The Washington Post=

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 13: Memory and Learning
Link ID: 23496 - Posted: 04.17.2017

Ian Sample Science editor Doctors have stumbled on an unlikely source for a drug to ward off brain damage caused by strokes: the venom of one of the deadliest spiders in the world. A bite from an Australian funnel web spider can kill a human in 15 minutes, but a harmless ingredient found in the venom can protect brain cells from being destroyed by a stroke, even when given hours after the event, scientists say. If the compound fares well in human trials, it could become the first drug that doctors have to protect against the devastating loss of neurons that strokes can cause. Researchers discovered the protective molecule by chance as they sequenced the DNA of toxins in the venom of the Darling Downs funnel web spider (Hadronyche infensa) that lives in Queensland and New South Wales. Venom from three spiders was gathered for the study after scientists trapped and “milked exhaustively” three spiders on Orchid beach, about 400km north of Brisbane. The molecule, called Hi1a, stood out because it looked like two copies of another brain cell-protecting chemical stitched together. It was so intriguing that scientists decided to synthesise the compound and test its powers. “It proved to be even more potent,” said Glenn King at the University of Queensland’s centre for pain research. Strokes occur when blood flow to the brain is interrupted and the brain is starved of oxygen. About 85% of strokes are caused by blockages in blood vessels in the brain, with the rest due to bleeds when vessels rupture. Approximately six million people a year die from stroke, making it the second largest cause of death worldwide after heart attacks. © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 23384 - Posted: 03.21.2017

After A Stroke At 33, A Writer Relies On Journals To Piece Together Her Own Story On New Year's Eve, 2006, Christine Hyung-Oak Lee developed a splitting headache. She was 33, and her world turned upside down — as in, she literally saw the world upside down. Suddenly, she could hold things in her mind for only 15 minutes at a time. She was a writer who now couldn't recall words or craft sentences. She remembers looking at the phone and thinking to herself: What is the phone number for 911? Days later, she learned she'd had a stroke. "I had a 15-minute short-term memory, like Dory the fish in Finding Nemo," Lee wrote in a Buzzfeed essay chronicling her experience. "My doctors instructed me to log happenings with timestamps in my Moleskine journal. That, they said, would be my working short-term memory. My memento to my mori." Lee used those journals to reconstruct her experience in a new memoir called Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember. She talks with NPR's Scott Simon about the silver linings of memory loss and the unexpected grief that came with her recovery. Interview Highlights On what it's like to have a 15-minute memory You don't even fathom the magnitude of your loss — or at least I didn't. I couldn't plan for the future. I couldn't think of the past. I had no regrets. So it's literally living in the moment. I was experiencing something that people go to yoga and Zen retreats to achieve. So it was quite pleasant. It was not pleasant for the people around me. But in that period of my recovery, where I couldn't remember everything, I think I was incredibly at peace and happy. On having an "invisible" disability It was frustrating. On the one hand, you want people to know: Hey, slow down for me. Hey, I'm going through a crisis. On the other hand, I was also privileged to be disabled in a way that wasn't visible. So people also didn't treat me any differently. So it was very isolating. ... When I told people that I was sick and I needed them to slow down, along with that came this need to explain my position and I ... felt a lot of resentment for having to do with that. © 2017 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 13: Memory and Learning
Link ID: 23213 - Posted: 02.11.2017

Robert McCrum Stroke, or “brain attack”, is the third biggest killer in the western world, after cancer and heart failure. The life-changing effects associated with this simple, Anglo-Saxon word are readily explained: a stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is disrupted by a blood vessel either bursting or blocking, so that the part of the brain supplied by this blood vessel dies. The brain is a much more complex organ than the heart. While strokes are a common feature of everyday life, precisely how and why they occur is far from straightforward. Each year in the UK, there will be about 50,000 brain attacks. One-third of those affected will die; one-third will be left severely disabled; and about one-third will make some kind of recovery. In the time it takes to read this article, approximately nine people in Britain, from across all age groups, will have suffered a stroke. Or did they? For the brain is not only super-sensitive territory – as the human animal’s command HQ – it is also top secret. Despite extraordinary progress in MRI scans, the brain remains essentially mysterious and the symptoms of its dysfunction can be hard to diagnose with certainty. An elderly man presenting himself at A&E with unsteady gait and a slurring of his words could be suffering a stroke – or he might just be intoxicated. Treat him for the former, and you’ll save his life; treat him as a drunk, and he might die. © 2017 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: 23133 - Posted: 01.23.2017

By Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press Posted: Peter Chaban was up early doing dishes one morning in 2012 when he noticed there was water flowing over his hand — but he couldn't feel it. Next thing he knew, he lost all sensation and strength on his left side and dropped to floor. Within seconds he was lying there completely immobilized. By the time the ambulance arrived at his vacation property near Collingwood, Ont., Chaban had recovered. But doctors at the local hospital diagnosed him with a probable transient ischemic attack, or TIA, a type of temporary stroke that leaves no permanent damage. Once he returned home to Toronto, Chaban was sent for an MRI, and the brain scan confirmed that diagnosis. But of more concern was the discovery of "quite a few" lesions in his brain, the result of "silent strokes" that show up as small holes on imaging. When the strokes had occurred and over what time period was a mystery to Chaban, who had experienced no symptoms. That's why, in fact, they're known as silent — patients have no idea they've had a miniature clot or microbleed in the brain that has destroyed a tiny chunk of neurons, but resulted in no loss of function as would typically occur with a full-blown stroke. "I was never aware of any deficits," said Chaban, 64, who retired from his research job at the Hospital for Sick Children three years ago. "When I was employed, I was quite cognitively active. "I was physically very active. I ski, play golf, I played squash until a few years ago. And my health is very good, so the silent strokes hadn't expressed themselves, at least to my awareness." ©2016 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23025 - Posted: 12.27.2016

As 2016 draws to a close, we are re-visiting some of the people we met this year — including one man who survived a stroke at a young age, and a listener who heard his story on the radio. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Now as 2016 draws to a close, we're revisiting some of the people we met this year. And NPR's Rae Ellen Bichell checks back with a man who survived a stroke in his 40s and also a listener who heard his story. RAE ELLEN BICHELL, BYLINE: Back in February, I reported a story about strokes increasing in adults under 50. Troy Hodge, a 43-year-old man living in Maryland, shared his story about having a stroke two years earlier. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST) TROY HODGE: I remember setting myself on the floor because I was really hot. And I wanted to get some water to splash on my face. BICHELL: When the story aired on MORNING EDITION, the radio waves carried Hodge's voice into the home of Sue Bryson, a teacher in Virginia. SUE BRYSON: It was just a normal Monday morning and I was just getting ready for work and I was listening to NPR. BICHELL: Listening to Hodge's story, Bryson realized that right then, she was having similar symptoms, that she was having a stroke. So she called her neighbors and they took her to the emergency room. BRYSON: I would have never gone to the hospital if I didn't hear your show - never. BICHELL: Bryson is now back in the classroom and Hodge has made some changes. He moved into a bigger apartment. He walks up a flight of stairs each day without his cane to check the mail. He sometimes forgets things. HODGE: Memory's not too bad, I mean, it's... © 2016 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 23024 - Posted: 12.27.2016

By Vik Adhopia, CBC News Every eight minutes someone in Canada has a stroke. But the odds of survival are getting better because of a new emergency intervention being offered at 22 hospitals across Canada. Spencer Higdon, 63, successfully received the procedure at Toronto Western Hospital in April after suddenly collapsing in his bathroom. "I was stepping into the shower and I dropped like a tonne of bricks." he said. When he regained consciousness he knew he'd had a stroke. "I couldn't move my right leg, my right arm, I couldn't speak, and I had difficulty moving my head." Physicians confirmed he'd had an ischemic stroke — a blood clot in his brain. Unless the blockage was cleared within a few hours, his paralysis would likely be permanent, or worse, he'd die. Higdon later learned from one of the treating physicians that because of the position of the clot in the brainstem, the consequences of his stroke could have been devastating. "She said it's called 'locked-in syndrome,' where your brain works just fine but nothing else in your body moves. You're lying in a bed and the only way to communicate is through your eyes. And that just horrified me." The procedure used to remove Higdon's clot, known as a thrombectomy, involves feeding a tiny catheter into an artery near the groin, all the way up into the brain and through the blockage. The device is expanded to grab the clot. Then it's pulled out, allowing the blood to flow again. Advanced imaging equipment helps navigate the catheter. For Higdon, the entire procedure took eight minutes, a record for the stroke team at Toronto Western. ©2016 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 22999 - Posted: 12.20.2016

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Stroke rates have been declining in older people over the past 20 years — but have sharply increased in those under 55. Researchers at Rutgers University used data from the New Jersey Department of Health on more than 227,000 hospitalizations for stroke from 1995 through 2014, calculating incidence by age over five-year periods. The findings appeared in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Compared with the 1995-99 period, the rate of stroke in 2010-14 increased by 147 percent in people 35 to 39, by 101 percent in people 40 to 44, by 68 percent in those 45 to 49, and by 23 percent in the 50 to 54 group. Stroke is still far more common in older people. But the rate decreased by 11 percent in those 55 to 59, by 22 percent in the 60 to 64 group, and by 18 percent in people 65 to 69. The reasons are unclear, but the lead author, Joel N. Swerdel, now an epidemiologist with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, said that increasing obesity and diabetes in younger people are probably involved. “For a person 30 to 50, the good news is you ain’t dead yet,” he said. “With behavioral changes, changing diet, increasing exercise, there’s still hope for you. Behavioral change is hard, but this study is an early warning sign.” © 2016 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: 22929 - Posted: 11.30.2016

By Smitha Mundasad Health reporter About 9,000 stroke patients a year are missing out on a treatment that can prevent disability following a stroke, say UK experts. Clot retrieval can restore blood flow to the brain, preventing some lasting damage, but currently only 600 patients a year get this therapy, they estimate. A national stroke audit reveals part of the problem is a lack of skilled staff to do the procedure. NHS England says stroke patients are receiving high quality care. During a stroke, the blood supplying vital parts of the brain is interrupted. The most common reason is a clot blocking a major blood vessel in the head, although some strokes are caused by a bleed. The longer a part of the brain is starved of blood, the more likely lasting damage - such as paralysis and speech problems - will occur. Expanding mesh While many people with a stroke caused by a clot currently get drugs to help dissolve the blockage, this does not always work completely. Thrombectomy - or clot retrieval - is another method, which aims to remove the clot mechanically. It is a highly skilled operation, and stroke services need to be set up to be able to deliver the treatment. A thin metal wire housing a mesh is inserted into a major artery in the leg and, under X-ray guidance, it is directed to the site of the problem in the brain. The mesh is then expanded, like a miniature fishing net, to trap and remove the clot. 'Once the clot was out, the damage stopped' © 2016 BBC

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 22923 - Posted: 11.29.2016

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Having one or two alcoholic drinks a day is associated with a lower risk of stroke, a review of studies has found. But drinking more than that increases the risk. The analysis, in BMC Medicine, used data from 27 studies. Compared with nondrinkers or occasional drinkers, people who had one or two drinks a day had an 8 percent reduced risk of ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes, caused by blockage of an artery supplying blood to the brain, account for about 87 percent of all strokes. Heavier drinking, however, increased stroke risk. Having up to four daily drinks led to an 8 percent increased risk of ischemic stroke, and at more than four drinks, the risk increased by 14 percent. Drinking more than four drinks a day also increased the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, the result of a burst or leaking blood vessel in or near the brain, by up to 82 percent. More moderate drinking did not raise hemorrhagic stroke risk. The lead author, Susanna C. Larsson, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, warned that alcohol is not health food. “Nondrinkers should not start to drink as a health measure,” she said. “And I wouldn’t recommend that a person who has a drink or two on the weekend increase his consumption.” © 2016 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 22913 - Posted: 11.26.2016