Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

A nanoparticle developed at Rice University and tested in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) may bring great benefits to the emergency treatment of brain-injury victims, even those with mild injuries. Combined polyethylene glycol-hydrophilic carbon clusters (PEG-HCC), already being tested to enhance cancer treatment, are also adept antioxidants. In animal studies, injections of PEG-HCC during initial treatment after an injury helped restore balance to the brain's vascular system. The results were reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. A PEG-HCC infusion that quickly stabilizes blood flow in the brain would be a significant advance for emergency care workers and battlefield medics, said Rice chemist and co-author James Tour. "This might be a first line of defense against reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are always overstimulated during a medical trauma, whether that be to an accident victim or an injured soldier," said Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. "They're certainly exacerbated when there's trauma with massive blood loss." In a traumatic brain injury, cells release an excessive amount of an ROS known as superoxide (SO) into the blood. … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) Scientists at Georgia State University have found that the ability to hear is lessened when, as a result of injury, a region of the brain responsible for processing sounds receives both visual and auditory inputs. Yu-Ting Mao, a former graduate student under Sarah L. Pallas, professor of neuroscience, explored how the brain's ability to change, or neuroplasticity, affected the brain's ability to process sounds when both visual and auditory information is sent to the auditory thalamus. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The auditory thalamus is the region of the brain responsible for carrying sound information to the auditory cortex, where sound is processed in detail. When a person or animal loses input from one of the senses, such as hearing, the region of the brain that processes that information does not become inactive, but instead gets rewired with input from other sensory systems. In the case of this study, early brain injury resulted in visual inputs into the auditory thalamus, which altered how the auditory cortex processes sounds. The cortical "map" for discriminating different sound frequencies was significantly disrupted, she explained. "One of the possible reasons the sound frequency map is so … Continue reading →

Behavioral control and decision-making take part in different regions of the brain's frontal lobe, new research shows The study effectively created a map of the frontal lobes, making it possible for patients with brain injuries to get an accurate prognosis early in treatment. "That knowledge will be tremendously useful for prognosis after brain injury," Ralph Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Caltech and a coauthor of the study published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), said in a press release. "Many people suffer injury to their frontal lobes -- for instance, after a head injury during an automobile accident -- but the precise pattern of the damage will determine their eventual impairment," he added. BLOG: Could Brain Injuries Unleash Pedophilia? When you're making a decision, several different parts of the brain might be activated. How a person functions after a brain injury depends on precisely where a brain injury occurs. Other parts of the brain might compensate, allowing the person to function typically, or the person might be left with a lifelong hardship in making decisions. "We can use our lesion maps and compare the location of damaged brain areas … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2012) Scientists at UCLA and the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, have unraveled how our brain cells encode the pronunciation of individual vowels in speech. Published in the Aug. 21 edition of Nature Communications, the discovery could lead to new technology that verbalizes the unspoken words of people paralyzed by injury or disease. "We know that brain cells fire in a predictable way before we move our bodies," explained Dr. Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "We hypothesized that neurons would also react differently when we pronounce specific sounds. If so, we may one day be able to decode these unique patterns of activity in the brain and translate them into speech." Fried and Technion's Ariel Tankus, formerly a postdoctoral researcher in Fried's lab, followed 11 UCLA epilepsy patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains to pinpoint the origin of their seizures. The researchers recorded neuron activity as the patients uttered one of five vowels or syllables containing the vowels. With Technion's Shy Shoham, the team studied how the neurons encoded vowel articulation at both the single-cell and collective level. The scientists found two areas -- the … Continue reading →

For many people, social media is a way to keep in touch with friends and family. For Mike Black, it has become a way to help save lives, starting with his own. On May 21, 2011, Black was involved in a serious car accident in Orlando, Florida. Black was ejected from his vehicle on impact and landed on his head, shearing his brain stem. Black was in a coma for several weeks, and doctors were forced to remove a portion of his brain in an effort to save his life. His prognosis was grim. Black's mother and stepfather, Allen residents Bernadette and Tom Coleman, flew to Orlando to be by his side. Because of the demands Black's care placed on his parents, they often found themselves unable to keep the rest of their family informed of Black's progress. They found a solution through social media, creating a Facebook page called "The Beans Recovery Group." Though the page began as a means to keep family and friends informed of Black's recovery and progress, it soon found a much wider audience. "What's crazy is other people started to join the site," Bernadette Coleman said. "People from all around the world started to … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) Amputation disrupts not only the peripheral nervous system but also central structures of the brain. While the brain is able to adapt and compensate for injury in certain conditions, in amputees the traumatic event prevents adaptive cortical changes. A group of scientists reports adaptive plastic changes in an amputee's brain following implantation of multielectrode arrays inside peripheral nerves. Their results are available in the current issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. "We found that a neurally-interfaced hand prosthesis re-established communication between the central and peripheral nervous systems, not only restructuring the areas directly responsible for motor control but also their functional balance within the bi-hemispheric system necessary for motor control," says lead investigator Camillo Porcaro, PhD, of the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Medical School, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) -- National Research Council (CNR). A 26-year old male with a left arm amputation was implanted with four microelectrode arrays in the ulnar and median nerves of his stump for four weeks. Prior to implantation, he was trained for two weeks by video to perform three specific movements with his phantom hand. During the experimental period, he underwent … Continue reading →

Amid growing concerns about concussions, more student athletes are having their brain function tested prior to injury in a procedure called baseline testing that is becoming increasingly mainstream. Baseline tests can be used for comparison to neurological exams after an athlete suffers a concussion to help choose the best treatment. The tests, on the market for a few years, are used mostly by school athletic programs and collegiate and professional teams. This summer, HeadFirst began offering the test to patients at concussion centers in Gambrills and Annapolis. HeadFirst, an affiliate of Crofton-based Righttime Medical Care, uses the ImPact test. But even as use of the tests grows, some say the tests are unreliable and that athletes could be allowed to return to play before their concussions are fully healed. Parents who took their kids to the Gambrills center recently said they know the tests can't prevent concussions, but it gives them an added level of comfort. Tim Poole's son Sean, 13, is playing football for the first time this fall. When Poole heard about baseline testing while picking up his son's equipment, he quickly made an appointment for Sean. Poole used to coach basketball and remembers how frequently his players … Continue reading →

Will Arlen has a traumatic brain injury and is so sensitive to light that he wears sunglasses all the time. The 17-year-old describes his migraines as like a knife stabbing his brain. His short term memory is shot. He can barely stand up on his own or move his left arm. The teenager from Exeter, N.H., said his symptoms developed after an illegal hit during a lacrosse game gave him a concussion so severe that it sent him into an 8-month downward spiral. His father, Larry Arlen, said his son used to be an active, outgoing, straight-A student, but they have had to pull him out of school because of his condition. Will, however, believes Ted Carrick, a chiropractor who specializes in the brain, holds the key to a miraculous cure for his condition. Carrick, who has 28 clinics worldwide and sees patients all over the world, practices a therapy he calls chiropractic neurology, a treatment he has been perfecting for 33 years. He rarely grants interviews, but allowed "Nightline" to be the first American television network to watch the treatment unfold at his clinic at Life University in Marietta, Ga. Watch the full story on "Nightline" tonight at 11:35 … Continue reading →

Natalie Creane, 33, was left seriously injured after a TV panel fell on her head at the Emirates Palace Hotel in 2008 Incident has left her suffering epileptic seizures and traumatic brain injury By Tahira Yaqoob PUBLISHED: 02:42 EST, 16 August 2012 | UPDATED: 13:34 EST, 16 August 2012 Legal action: Natalie Creane was left with a life-threatening brain condition after a TV panel fell on her head in a five-star hotel four years ago The British newlywed left with a life-threatening brain condition after a TV panel fell on her head in a five-star hotel has spoken for the first time about her four-year ordeal. Natalie Creane, 33, said she cannot be left alone after the incident in the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi left her suffering epileptic seizures and a traumatic brain injury. She said: 'I do not live a normal life and I never will.' As she can only walk and talk with great difficulty, Mrs Creane took a week to articulate the trauma of the past four years. During that time she has been locked in a battle for compensation with the Emirates Palace hotel. She suffered a string of debilitating injuries when a TV … Continue reading →

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seth Lederman, M.D., President and CEO of New York City-based Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. (TONIX or the Company) (TNXP) says that a good nights sleep is a potentially powerful, but currently elusive, treatment for the chronic pain and sleep disorders suffered by patients with fibromyalgia (FM), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Dr. Lederman made his remarks in an interview with the CEOLive Financial Network which is available at:http://ceolive.tv/tonix-pharmaceuticals/tnxp-videos/279-ceolive-investorinsight-series-featuring-tonix-pharmaceuticals-tnxp. He also said that a promising new drug under development by TONIX for treating FM, whose symptoms include pain and sleeping problems, might be able to provide the restful sleep that would help people with these conditions. Dr. Lederman points out that chronic pain and sleep disorders are common problems in FM, PTSD, TBI and CTE. Many patients have learned that their symptoms can be eased after a restful nights sleep. However, part of the decompensation thats common in all these conditions happens when the pain syndrome makes it impossible to get restful sleep. It is suspected that TBI or CTE may have been factors in the suicide deaths of several National Football League players, including Junior Seau. Numerous suicides among … Continue reading →