A new treatment for traumatic brain injury? Flick On a Cybernetic Prosthetic Implant Like a "light switch" for a damaged brain, Dr. Randolph Nudo talks to Not Impossible about the Cybernetic Implant he and fellow researchers at Kansas Univers... By: Not Impossible … Continue reading →

Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is an injury that can have little to far reaching complications. It is estimated that in 2006, 46,000 children in the U.S. were taken to the hospital as a result of traumatic brain injuries. Each year, in the US, its estimated 1.7 million adults will sustain a TBI. It occurs when an external force or blow is sustained to the skull. It may be a single episode or a cumulative result of several. It can happen at the playground, contact sports, motor vehicle collision of both low and high velocity and abrupt acceleration and deceleration type injury to the head. It is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Symptoms can include headache, vomiting, nausea, lack of motor coordination, dizziness, difficulty balancing, light-headedness, blurred vision or tired eyes, ringing in the ears, bad taste in the mouth, fatigue or lethargy, and changes in sleep patterns. Cognitive and emotional symptoms include behavioural or mood changes, confusion, and trouble with memory, concentration, attention, or thinking abnormalities. At present, I have 11 patients in my clinic who suffer from TBI; six from motor vehicle collisions, three from falls on the ice and two from snowboarding. Dr. Mark … Continue reading →

Siblings focus on families of brain injury victims 10:58am Thursday 16th January 2014 in News By Haydn Lewis, Education reporter THE bond between three sisters has led to a new study in to how the families of brain injury victims want their loved ones to be treated. A study carried out by Prof Celia Kitzinger from the department of sociology at the University of York and her sister, Prof Jenny Kitzinger, at Cardiff Universitys school of journalism asked if families, who have severely brain-injured relatives, would consider terminal sedation. Their sister, Polly, was severely brain injured in a car accident in 2009. The pair are co-directors of the York-Cardiff Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre (CDoC) which explores the social and ethical challenges of the vegetative and minimally conscious state. Prof Celia Kitzinger said: At the moment it is legal to allow people to die by withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, but that can mean watching a long, slow death which many relatives just cannot bear the thought of. If a court is going to take a decision to allow someone to die, why not do it in a way thats less prolonged for the patient, or, if the patient … Continue reading →

NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- We use both sides of our brain for speech, U.S. researchers report in a study they say alters previous conceptions about neurological activity. Researchers at New York University, writing in the journal Nature, say the findings offer insights into addressing speech-related inhibitions caused by stroke or injury and lay the groundwork for better rehabilitation methods. Many scientists have held that both speech and language are lateralized -- in other words, we use only one side of our brains for speech, which involves listening and speaking, and language, which involves constructing and understanding sentences. Not so, say the NYU researchers. "Our findings upend what has been universally accepted in the scientific community -- that we use only one side of our brains for speech," senior study author Bijan Pesaran of the university's Center for Neural Science said. "In addition, now that we have a firmer understanding of how speech is generated, our work toward finding remedies for speech afflictions is much better informed." The researchers examined brain functions of patients suffering from epilepsy with specialized electrodes placed directly inside and on the surface of the brain, a method that coincided with their medical treatment. "Recordings … Continue reading →