Small pulses of electricity to the brain have an effect on memory, new research shows. Science Photo Library/SCIEPRO/Getty Images hide caption Small pulses of electricity to the brain have an effect on memory, new research shows. People with a brain injury or dementia often struggle to remember simple things, like names or places. In research published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, scientists have shown it may be possible to improve this sort of memory using tiny pulses of electricity if they're properly timed. A typical person's ability to remember things tends to vary a lot, says Michael Kahana, who directs the computational memory lab at the University of Pennsylvania. "Some days we're at the top of our game," he says, "and some days we're just off our game." That's also true for people whose memory has been impaired by a brain injury or disease. So Kahana wondered whether there might be some way to help these people perform at their peak level all the time. "If they could just move their game up so that every day was their best day, then it would really significantly change their quality of life," Kahana says. He and a team of researchers … Continue reading →

Researchers from the Peter ODonnell Jr. Brain Institute will participate in a national study to determine whether medical devices used in the home can diagnose sleep apnea that often develops after traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The $2.68 million study will compare the accuracy of formal laboratory screening versus wristwatch-like sensors that TBI patients will wear to measure sleep patterns. Researchers want to know if wrist actigraphs, if proven comparable to full-scale polysomnography commonly used in sleep labs, would offer a reliable, accessible method to diagnose sleep apnea and lead to earlier treatment. Sleep apneaoften goes undiagnosed, which for TBI patients can be a crucial setback in recovery. Optimizing sleep is essential for neurorecovery after TBI, says Kathleen Bell, MD, the projects investigator at the ODonnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, in a release. Funding for the study comes from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to further previous work from the multi-institutional team on how TBI affects sleeping patterns. The team recently published the largest study examining sleep apnea incidence in consecutive admissions to inpatient brain injury rehabilitation. The researchers found that 50% of all brain injury admissions, and 37% of … Continue reading →

CHESAPEAKE Leslie VanCleave wishes she could erase the image from her mind. Its the moment right after she checked the hotel bed, saw that her 25-year-old son was missing, then checked the bathroom empty then the balcony, also deserted. She wishes she had stopped right there in the panic to find him and had not taken the next instinctive step of a mother: looking over the balcony rail to the sidewalk below. Thats where, on April 11, her son had fallen to his death off the third-story hotel balcony in Ohio. Now Leslie and her husband, James, are planning a Saturday memorial for a son whose short life was sweet but difficult, particularly in the years since he suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 14. In a sense, his fatal fall began that Halloween night in 2006. The family had spent more than a decade trying to piece together services for Derek. The latest effort had fallen apart, which was why they took him on vacation instead of leaving him home with caregivers. His story is not just about a tragic, split-second accident. It also provides a long view into the world of families struggling to care … Continue reading →