A leading epilepsy expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, has said there is a pressing need for new and more effective treatments that would make it possible for all sufferers to live seizure free. On Purple Day today (Wednesday 26 March), a global epilepsy awareness day, Professor Robin Williams said many epilepsy patients' quality of life could be significantly improved thanks to advances currently being made in treatments. "Epilepsy can have a devastating effect on people and their families and there are a range of serious side-effects associated with current treatments," said Professor Williams, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway. "I believe that research represents the best hope of finding a cure for epilepsy and eventually we will develop new treatments so that no-one will have to experience seizures." Last year, research by Professor Williams, in collaboration with Professor Matthew Walker, unlocked the secret to valproic acid, the most commonly prescribed treatment for epilepsy. The research identified how the drug works to block seizures in epilepsy sufferers, a fact that had remained a mystery for almost 50 years. However, despite important breakthroughs in current treatments, the academic has said that further advances must also be made … Continue reading →

Glendale, CA (PRWEB) March 26, 2014 Audio-Digest Foundation Announces the Release of Neurology Volume 05, Issue 02: Nerve Entrapments/Medically Refractory Epilepsy. The goal of this program is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of nerve entrapments and medically refractory epilepsy. After hearing and assimilating this program, the clinician will be better able to: 1. Diagnose and treat common nerve entrapments, eg, carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve compression, peroneal neuropathy. 2. Perform nerve conduction studies and interpret findings related to numbness, tingling, and weakness. 3. Treat neuropathic pain in compression neuropathies. 4. Identify factors that lead to refractory epilepsy, evaluate seizure rates, and elaborate on the importance of achieving remission from seizures in patients with epilepsy. 5. Perform presurgical evaluations in patients considering temporal lobe epilepsy surgery to define the epileptogenic zone and assess the risks for verbal and memory deficits. The original programs were presented by Mazen M. Dimachkie, MD, Professor of Neurology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, and Carol M. Ulloa, MD, Associate Neurologist and Epileptologist, Geisinger Health System, Wilkes-Barre, PA. Audio-Digest Foundation, the largest independent publisher of Continuing Medical Education in the world, records over 10,000 hours of lectures every year in anesthesiology, emergency medicine, family … Continue reading →

Autism Breakthrough: Social Skills BEFORE Academics - The Son-Rise Program - Raun K. Kaufman http://www.autismtreatment.org/ Raun K. Kaufman is the author of "Autism Breakthrough: The Groundbreaking Method That Has Helped Families All Over the World"... By: autismtreatment … Continue reading →

Center for Autism India | Best Autism Treatment Specialist in India| Autism Doctor Chennai Doast, the autism center Chennai, Tamil Nadu, is one of the best autism treatment center in India, provides integrated therapy for autistic children, which a... By: DOAST Autism Center … Continue reading →

Listen Story audio The symptoms of autism may not be obvious until a child is a toddler, but the disorder itself appears to begin well before birth. Brain tissue taken from children who died and also happened to have autism revealed patches of disorganization in the cortex, a thin sheet of cells that's critical for learning and memory, researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Tissue samples from children without autism didn't have those characteristic patches. Organization of the cortex begins in the second trimester of pregnancy. "So something must have gone wrong at or before that time," says Eric Courchesne, an author of the paper and director of the Autism Center of Excellence at the University of California, San Diego. The finding should bolster efforts to understand how genes control brain development and lead to autism. It also suggests that treatment should start early in childhood, when the brain is capable of rewiring to work around damaged areas. The study grew out of research by Courchesne on development of the cortex in children with autism. In typical kids, the cortex is "like a layer cake," he says. "There are six layers, one on top of the other, … Continue reading →

hide captionResearchers say intervention in early childhood may help the developing brain compensate by rewiring to work around the trouble spots. The symptoms of autism may not be obvious until a child is a toddler, but the disorder itself appears to begin well before birth. Brain tissue taken from children who died and also happened to have autism revealed patches of disorganization in the cortex, a thin sheet of cells that's critical for learning and memory, researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Tissue samples from children without autism didn't have those characteristic patches. Organization of the cortex begins in the second trimester of pregnancy. "So something must have gone wrong at or before that time," says Eric Courchesne, an author of the paper and director of the Autism Center of Excellence at the University of California, San Diego. The finding should bolster efforts to understand how genes control brain development and lead to autism. It also suggests that treatment should start early in childhood, when the brain is capable of rewiring to work around damaged areas. The study grew out of research by Courchesne on development of the cortex in children with autism. In typical kids, the … Continue reading →

The brains of children with autism contain a built-in patchwork of defects, suggesting that the developmental disorder begins while they are growing in the womb, reported a study Wednesday. Researchers described their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine as "direct evidence" of a prenatal origin for autism, which affects as many as one in 88 children in the United States and has no known cure. "Building a baby's brain during pregnancy involves creating a cortex that contains six layers," said co-author Eric Courchesne, professor of neurosciences and director of the Autism Center of Excellence at University of California, San Diego. "We discovered focal patches of disrupted development of these cortical layers in the majority of children with autism." For the study, researchers dissected brain tissue from 11 children, aged 2 to 15, who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and who had died, most of them by drowning. Looking for a specific set of 25 genes that had "robust, consistent, and specific expression patterns in the cortex," they compared them to brain samples from 11 children without autism, said the study. Researchers found that 91 percent of the autistic brains were lacking -- or showed an … Continue reading →

A detailed study of brain samples of children with autism who died young shows remarkably clear changes in their brains, researchers reported on Wednesday. The differences are seen both on the genetic level and in the physical structure of the brain, and strongly support what scientists have been saying for years that autism starts with disrupted genes that somehow interfere with brain development. The changes look like patches of arrested development deep in the brain, says Eric Courchesne of the University of California, San Diegos Autism Center of Excellence. "They are actually jam-packed with brain cells," Courchesne told NBC News. Not only are there too many cells, but they are not developed properly. "Brain cells are there but they havent changed into the kind of cell they are supposed to be. It's a failure of early formation." It supports the idea that the changes that cause autism are happening in the second and third trimester of pregnancy, Courchesne said. "Brain cells are there but they havent changed into the kind of cell they are supposed to be. It's a failure of early formation." But the findings also raise as many questions as they answer about the condition, which has been … Continue reading →

A detailed study of brain samples of children with autism who died young shows remarkably clear changes in their brains, researchers reported on Wednesday. The differences are seen both on the genetic level and in the physical structure of the brain, and strongly support what scientists have been saying for years that autism starts with disrupted genes that somehow interfere with brain development. The changes look like patches of arrested development deep in the brain, says Eric Courchesne of the University of California, San Diegos Autism Center of Excellence. "They are actually jam-packed with brain cells," Courchesne told NBC News. Not only are there too many cells, but they are not developed properly. "Brain cells are there but they havent changed into the kind of cell they are supposed to be. It's a failure of early formation." It supports the idea that the changes that cause autism are happening in the second and third trimester of pregnancy, Courchesne said. "Brain cells are there but they havent changed into the kind of cell they are supposed to be. It's a failure of early formation." But the findings also raise as many questions as they answer about the condition, which has been … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise CHAPEL HILL, N.C. Neurologists have long debated how to help prevent certain stroke patients from suffering a second stroke. Now research from UNC School of Medicine provides the first evidence for which course of treatment is truly best for patients with poor collateral blood vessel formation near the site of stroke: they should have their blood pressure lowered to normal levels. Many neurologists had suspected that blood pressure should be left high in this group of patients because doctors thought high blood pressure might force blood around the blockage and through collateral vessels, which would be beneficial and, therefore, reduce risk of stroke. But research from William Powers, MD, the H. Houston Merritt Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology, shows that keeping blood pressure high leads to a four-fold increase in the risk of stroke. The study was published in the journal Neurology March 26. Up until now doctors would say to patients, well, we think you should do this or we think you should do that, Powers said. But our paper provides the first data that show how patients with poor collateral vessels should be treated. Andrew Southerland, … Continue reading →