Saturday, April 27, 2013

New Treatment Guideline in Acute Spinal Cord Injury: NO STEROIDS

   The first new spinal cord injury treatment in a decade cites strong evidence that high-dose steroids are associated with harmful side effects, including death, in acute spinal cord injury.
Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons

Coffee, Tea or Fiber ? To Decrease Stroke Risk

   Greater dietary fiber intake is decidedly associated with lower risk of first stroke. 
STROKE March 28,2013
   Higher consumption of green tea and coffee may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. 
STROKE March,14 2013

Friday, April 26, 2013

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Increases Risk of Dementia

   From WashUCOM St. Louis, more than half the study participants with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) developed dementia. 
   It is uncertain as to the pathological mechanism which may be involved :repeated drops in oxygen? the paucity of deep (reparative) sleep? or some other mechanism.
JAMA 2011;306(6):613-619

Monday, April 22, 2013

Travel to Mars but Loose Your Marbles ?

   Researchers from URMC in cooperation with the NASA Space Radiation Lab at Brookhaven exposed double transgenic mice ( with APP and Presenilin mutations), that were destined to develop Alzheimer's pathological changes anyway, to Iron-56. Six months after 10 and 100 cGy radiation at 1GeV/u the mice displayed impairment on behavioral studies. After sacrifice, there was evidence of accelerated beta amyloid deposition.
   This is the first study to demonstrate that HZE particle radiation can increase beta amyloid plaque pathology.
  Studies are underway with normal mice to see if the effects can be duplicated.
PLoS One 2012;7(12):e53275. E-pub 2012 Dec 31

Monday, April 1, 2013

Immuno-therapy For Parkinson's Disease ?

   From the labs of the University of Pennsylvania comes an important supportive paper to the growing body of evidence that alpha-synuclein (AS) travels through the brain in a prion-like manner effecting anatomically connected regions, inducing Lewy body formation and causing the cell death of dopaminergic neurons.
   This study suggests that "templated recruitment and transmission" is the mechanism of disease. 
   The results also suggest that delivering antibodies to the brain of affected animals to bind to extracellular AS would be a way of interrupting the spreading process and theoretically halting the disease.
Science 2012;338(6109):949-953

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

   Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is characterized by the accumulation of tau protein deposits in the form of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), glial tangles, and neuropil threads in the brain....which cause brain cell death and in the later stages brain atrophy. The regional brain distribution of these protein deposits is unique to CTE.
  The above findings were the result of a blinded review of three tissue samples from unidentified brains including NFL player Junior Seau.
   Little is known about the cause of this disease which results in signs of cognitive impairment and personality changes especially depression.
   Recall from my earlier reviews that tau NFTs are also seen in the brains of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease...although different in pattern of distribution.
Brain 2012;E-pub 2012 Dec. 2
http://bit.ly/buAnRo