How the Brain Controls your Nerve Reactions

As neuropathy patients, we all know that whatever we suffer from, has a lot to do with the brain as the driving force behind the nervous system. However, very few of us understand what goes on there and how it really works.
Our old friend Dr. Erickson, from the Health and Wellness Centre in Denver, gives us his usual high speed explanation of how something operates: in this case the brain and how what happens there affects our nervous system. He may talk quite quickly and you may need to watch it a couple of times to let it all sink in but nobody explains things quite as clearly as he does. He really knows how to talk to the layman patient and you get the feeling that he really wants to make it as simple as possible for us to understand.

CAN SLEEP LOSS AFFECT YOUR BRAIN SIZE

Sleep difficulties may be linked to faster rates of decline in brain volume, according to a study published in the September 3, 2014, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology

Sleep has been proposed to be "the brain's housekeeper," serving to repair and restore the brain.

The study included 147 adults 20 and 84 years old. Researchers examined the link between sleep difficulties, such as having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night, and brain volume.

All participants underwent two MRI brain scans, an average of 3.5 years apart, before completing a questionnaire about their sleep habits.

A total of 35 percent of the participants met the criteria for poor sleep quality, scoring an average of 8.5 out of 21 points on the sleep assessment. The assessment looked at how long people slept, how long it took them to fall asleep at night, use of sleeping medications, and other factors.

The study found that sleep difficulties were linked with a more rapid decline in brain volume over the course of the study in widespread brain regions, including within frontal, temporal and parietal areas.

The results were more pronounced in people over 60 years old.

"It is not yet known whether poor sleep quality is a cause or consequence of changes in brain structure," said study author Claire E. Sexton, DPhil, with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "There are effective treatments for sleep problems, so future research needs to test whether improving people's quality of sleep could slow the rate of brain volume loss. If that is the case, improving people's sleep habits could be an important way to improve brain health."

Deep Brain Stimulation Helps Neuropathic Pain

Today's post from newswise.com (see link below) talks about one of the latest stories concerning neuropathic pain treatment and that is deep brain stimulation. This is where a small electrode is inserted into the brain and activated to produce an electrical signal designed to interrupt abnormal activity. It's precisely this sort of research which gives us hope that it won't be too long before pain can be controlled without resorting to powerful drugs. However, it will probably never be cheap, or available to all, even if it is proved to be of benefit to all people living with chronic pain. That said, it looks as though it may well be an effective option for some patients and that must be a good thing.

For Some, Deep Brain Stimulation Brings Lasting Improvement in Neuropathic Pain
Released: 2/13/2013 10:00 AM EST
Source Newsroom: Wolters Kluwer Health: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins


Large Study Shows Continued Improvement with Longer Follow-up, Reports Neurosurgery

Newswise — Philadelphia, Pa. (February 13, 2013) – For many patients with difficult-to-treat neuropathic pain, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can lead to long-term improvement in pain scores and other outcomes, according to a study in the February issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of theCongress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

About two-thirds of eligible patients who undergo DBS achieve significant and lasting benefits in terms of pain, quality of life, and overall health, according to the report by Sandra G.J. Boccard, PhD, and colleagues of University of Oxford, led by Tipu Aziz FMedSci and Alex Green, MD. Some outcomes show continued improvement after the first year, according to the new report, which is one of the largest studies of DBS for neuropathic pain performed to date.

Most Patients Benefit from DBS for Neuropathic Pain
The authors reviewed their 12-year experience with DBS for neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain is a common and difficult-to-treat type of pain caused by nerve damage, seen in patients with trauma, diabetes, and other conditions. Phantom limb pain after amputation is an example of neuropathic pain.

In DBS, a small electrode is surgically placed in a precise location in the brain. A mild electrical current is delivered to stimulate that area of the brain, with the goal of interrupting abnormal activity. Deep brain stimulation has become a standard and effective treatment for movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Although DBS has also been used to treat various types of chronic pain, its role in patients with neuropathic pain remains unclear.

Between 1999 and 2011, that authors' program evaluated 197 patients with chronic neuropathic pain for eligibility for DBS. Of these, 85 patients proceeded to DBS treatment. The remaining patients did not receive DBS—most commonly because they were unable to secure funding from the U.K. National Health Service or decided not to undergo electrode placement surgery.

The patients who underwent DBS were 60 men and 25 women, average age 52 years. Stroke was the most common cause of neuropathic pain, followed by head and face pain, spinal disease, amputation, and injury to nerves from the upper spinal cord (brachial plexus).

In 74 patients, a trial of DBS produced sufficient pain relief to proceed with implantation of an electrical pulse generator. Of 59 patients with sufficient follow-up data, 39 had significant improvement in their overall health status up to four years later. Thus, 66 percent of patients "gained benefit and efficacy" by undergoing DBS.

Benefits Vary by Cause; Some Outcomes Improve with Time
The benefits of DBS varied for patients with different causes of neuropathic pain. Treatment was beneficial for 89 percent for patients with amputation and 70 percent of those with stroke, compared to 50 percent of those with brachial plexus injury.

On average, scores on a 10-point pain scale (with 10 indicating the most severe pain) decreased from about 8 to 4 within the first three months, remaining about the same with longer follow-up. Continued follow-up in a small number of patients suggested further improvement in other outcomes, including quality-of-life scores.

Deep brain stimulation has long been regarded as potentially useful for patients with severe neuropathic pain that is not relieved by other treatments. However, because of the difficulties of performing studies of this highly specialized treatment, there has been relatively little research to confirm its benefits; only about 1,500 patients have been treated worldwide. The new study—accounting for about five percent of all reported patients—used up-to-date DBS technologies, imaging, and surgical techniques.

Dr. Boccard and coauthors acknowledge some important limitations of their study—especially the lack of complete patient follow-up. However, they believe their experience is sufficiently encouraging to warrant additional studies, especially with continued advances in stimulation approaches and technology. The researchers conclude, "Clinical trials retaining patients in long-term follow-up are desirable to confirm findings from prospectively assessed case series."

About Neurosurgery
Neurosurgery, the Official Journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, is your most complete window to the contemporary field of neurosurgery. Members of the Congress and non-member subscribers receive 3,000 pages per year packed with the very latest science, technology, and medicine, not to mention full-text online access to the world's most complete, up-to-the-minute neurosurgery resource. For professionals aware of the rapid pace of developments in the field, Neurosurgery is nothing short of indispensable.

About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.
LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2011 annual revenues of €3.4 billion ($4.7 billion).


http://www.newswise.com/articles/for-some-deep-brain-stimulation-brings-lasting-improvement-in-neuropathic-pain?ret=/articles/list&category=medicine&page=1&search[status]=3&search[sort]=date+desc&search[section]=10&search[has_multimedia]=

SEE THROUGH SENSORS OPEN NEW WINDOW IN TO THE BRAIN

Developing invisible implantable medical sensor arrays, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has overcome a major technological hurdle in researchers' efforts to understand the brain.

The team described its technology, which has applications in fields ranging from neuroscience to cardiac care and even contact lenses, in the Oct. 20 issue of the online journal Nature Communications.

Neural researchers study, monitor or stimulate the brain using imaging techniques in conjunction with implantable sensors that allow them to continuously capture and associate fleeting brain signals with the brain activity they can see. However, it's difficult to see brain activity when there are sensors blocking the view.

"One of the holy grails of neural implant technology is that we'd really like to have an implant device that doesn't interfere with any of the traditional imaging diagnostics," says Justin Williams, a professor of biomedical engineering and neurological surgery at UW-Madison. "A traditional implant looks like a square of dots, and you can't see anything under it. We wanted to make a transparent electronic device."

The researchers chose graphene, a material gaining wider use in everything from solar cells to electronics, because of its versatility and biocompatibility. And in fact, they can make their sensors incredibly flexible and transparent because the electronic circuit elements are only 4 atoms thick -- an astounding thinness made possible by graphene's excellent conductive properties. "It's got to be very thin and robust to survive in the body," says Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW-Madison. "It is soft and flexible, and a good tradeoff between transparency, strength and conductivity."

Drawing on his expertise in developing revolutionary flexible electronics, he, Williams and their students designed and fabricated the microelectrode arrays, which -- unlike existing devices -- work in tandem with a range of imaging technologies. "Other implantable microdevices might be transparent at one wavelength, but not at others, or they lose their properties," says Ma. "Our devices are transparent across a large spectrum -- all the way from ultraviolet to deep infrared. We've even implanted them and you cannot find them in an MR scan."

The transparent sensors could be a boon to neuromodulation therapies, which physicians increasingly are using to control symptoms, restore function, and relieve pain in patients with diseases or disorders such as hypertension, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, or others, says Kip Ludwig, a program director for the National Institutes of Health neural engineering research efforts. "Despite remarkable improvements seen in neuromodulation clinical trials for such diseases, our understanding of how these therapies work -- and therefore our ability to improve existing or identify new therapies -- is rudimentary."

Currently, he says, researchers are limited in their ability to directly observe how the body generates electrical signals, as well as how it reacts to externally generated electrical signals. "Clear electrodes in combination with recent technological advances in optogenetics and optical voltage probes will enable researchers to isolate those biological mechanisms. This fundamental knowledge could be catalytic in dramatically improving existing neuromodulation therapies and identifying new therapies."

The advance aligns with bold goals set forth in President Barack Obama's BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative. Obama announced the initiative in April 2013 as an effort to spur innovations that can revolutionize understanding of the brain and unlock ways to prevent, treat or cure such disorders as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and others.

While the team centered its efforts on neural research, they already have started to explore other medical device applications. For example, working with researchers at the University of Illinois-Chicago, they prototyped a contact lens instrumented with dozens of invisible sensors to detect injury to the retina; the UIC team is exploring applications such as early diagnosis of glaucoma.

Additional authors on the Nature Communications paper include UW-Madison electrical and computer engineering graduate students Dong-Wook Park and Solomon Mikael, materials science graduate student Amelia A. Schendel, biomedical engineering research specialist Sarah K. Brodnick; biomedical engineering graduate students Thomas J. Richner, Jared P. Ness and Mohammed R. Hayat; collaborators Farid Atry, Seth T. Frye and Ramin Pashaie of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and Sanitta Thongpang of Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand.

The researchers are patenting their technology through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Funding for the research came from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

LIPIDS BOOST THE BRAIN

Consuming oils with high polyunsaturated fatty acid content, in particular those containing omega-3s, is beneficial for the health. But the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly known. Researchers at the Institut de Pharmacologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (CNRS/Université Nice Sophia Antipolis), the Unité Compartimentation et Dynamique Cellulaires (CNRS/Institut Curie/UPMC), the INSERM and the Université de Poitiers investigated the effect of lipids bearing polyunsaturated chains when they are integrated into cell membranes. Their work shows that the presence of these lipids makes the membranes more malleable and therefore more sensitive to deformation and fission by proteins. These results, published on August 8, 2014 in Science, could help explain the extraordinary efficacy of endocytosis in neuron cells.

Consuming polyunsaturated fatty acids (such as omega-3 fatty acids) is good for the health. The effects range from neuronal differentiation to protection against cerebral ischemia. However the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects are poorly understood, prompting researchers to focus on the role of these fatty acids in cell membrane function.

For a cell to function properly, the membrane must be able to deform and divide into small vesicles. This phenomenon is called endocytosis. Generally, these vesicles allow the cells to encapsulate molecules and transport them.. In neurons, these synaptic vesicles will act as a transmission pathway to the synapse for nerve messages. They are formed inside the cell, then they move to its exterior and fuse with its membrane, to transmit the neurotransmitters that they contain. Then they reform in less than a tenth of a second: this is synaptic recycling.

In the work published in Science, the researchers show that cell- or artificial membranes rich in polyunsaturated lipids are much more sensitive to the action of two proteins, dynamin and endophilin, which facilitate membrane deformation and fission. Other measurements in the study and in simulations suggest that these lipids also make the membranes more malleable. By facilitating the deformation and scission necessary for endocytosis, the presence of polyunsaturated lipids could explain rapid synaptic vesicle recycling.. The abundance of these lipids in the brain could then represent a major advantage for cognitive function.

This work partially sheds light on the mode of action of omega-3. Considering that the body cannot synthesize them and that they can only be supplied by a suitable diet (rich in oily fish, etc.), it seems important to continue this work to understand the link between the functions performed by these lipids in the neuronal membrane and their health benefits.

How The Brain Processes Chronic Pain

Today's post from sciencedaily.com (see link below) is a fascinating look at how the brain processes pain signals. It looks at which signals the nerve cells use to respond to a pain stimulus. Slowly but surely, scientists are building up a map of how nerve cells behave in the brain. It's been a largely unexplored area due to the complexity of brain cells but the more is discovered, the better people with chronic pain will be able to be treated in the future.
 

Brain processes ongoing pain more emotionally
Date: March 11, 2015 Source: Technische Universitaet Muenchen
 
Summary:

A momentary lapse of concentration is all it takes for a finger to become trapped or sprain an ankle -- and it hurts. Pain is the body's protective mechanism and a complex neurological phenomenon. Moreover, ongoing pain in the sense of chronic pain can be a disease, clinicians say. Scientists have now demonstrated that already during a few minutes of ongoing pain, the underlying brain activity changes by shifting from sensory to emotional processes.




The picture shows the EEG results during a short (left) and a long-lasting pain stimulus (right). The brain areas with the strongest activity are depicted in red. Short pain stimuli are processed in sensory brain areas, whereas ongoing pain is processed in frontal brain areas which are related to emotional processes.
Credit: E. Schulz et al., 2015, Prefrontal gamma oscillations encode tonic pain in humans, Cerebral Cortex

In their experiments, Prof. Markus Ploner, Heisenberg Professor for Human Pain Research at the TUM School of Medicine, and his team investigated pain perception: How does the duration of pain or the action of a placebo affect activities in the brain? For their measurements they used electroencephalograms (EEGs). The test subject wore a cap with 64 electrodes that can measure nerve cell activity in the brain throughout the experiment. This method makes it possible to chronologically pinpoint which signals nerve cells use to respond to a pain stimulus.

Pain influences emotion

The scientists used the following arrangement for their experiments: Over a period of ten minutes, 41 participants in the study were given painful heat stimuli to the hand which varied in intensity throughout the duration of the experiment. The participants were asked to continuously assess the level of their pain on a scale of one to a hundred with the other hand using a slider.

"We were absolutely amazed by the results: After just a few minutes, the subjective perception of pain changed -- for example, the subjects felt changes in pain when the objective stimulus remained unchanged. The sensation of pain became detached from the objective stimulus after just a few minutes," says Markus Ploner, describing the results.

Previous studies showed that brief pain stimuli are predominantly processed by sensory areas of the brain that process the signals from the sensory organs such as the skin. However, in their experiment with longer-lasting ongoing pain, the EEGs gave the scientists a different picture: in this case, emotional areas of the brain became active.

"If pain persists over a prolonged period of time, the associated brain activity shows that it changes from a pure perception process to a more emotional process. This realization is extremely interesting for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain where pain persists for months and years," explains Markus Ploner, who is also senior physician in the Department of Neurology at the TUM Klinikum rechts der Isar.

Placebos change the perception of pain

A second experiment showed that it is not just the duration, but also the anticipation of a pain stimulus that affects perception. Twenty test subjects were initially given different intensities of painful laser pulses on two areas of the back of the hand. The participants then rated verbally how strong they perceived the pain stimuli. As the experiments progressed, the subjects were once again given the same stimuli, the difference this time being that two creams had previously been applied to both areas. Although neither cream contained an active substance, the subjects were told that one of the creams had a pain-relieving effect.

The result according to Markus Ploner: "The subjects assessed the pain on the skin area with the allegedly pain-relieving cream as significantly lower than on the other area of skin." The scientists were further able to demonstrate how the brain implements this placebo effect: although the subjects were given the same pain stimuli, the nerve cells in the second run triggered a different pattern of brain activity.

"Our results show how differently our brain processes the same pain stimuli. Systematically mapping and better understanding this complex neurological phenomenon of 'pain' in the brain is a big challenge, but is absolutely essential for improving therapeutic options for pain patients," in Ploner's opinion.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Technische Universitaet Muenchen. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal References:
E. Schulz, E. S. May, M. Postorino, L. Tiemann, M. M. Nickel, V. Witkovsky, P. Schmidt, J. Gross, M. Ploner. Prefrontal Gamma Oscillations Encode Tonic Pain in Humans. Cerebral Cortex, 2015; DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhv043
Laura Tiemann, Elisabeth S. May, Martina Postorino, Enrico Schulz, Moritz M. Nickel, Ulrike Bingel, Markus Ploner. Differential neurophysiological correlates of bottom-up and top-down modulations of pain. PAIN, 2015; 156 (2): 289 DOI: 10.1097/01.j.pain.0000460309.94442.44

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150311124530.htm

ANTI EPILEPSY DRUG PRESERVES BRAIN FUNCTION AFTER STROKE

New research suggests that an already-approved drug could dramatically reduce the debilitating impact of strokes, which affect nearly a million Americans every year.

In the study, one dose of the anti-epilepsy drug, retigabine, preserved brain tissue in a mouse model of stroke and prevented the loss of balance control and motor coordination. Researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio conducted the study, which was published Feb. 3 in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Balance and coordination test

Hours after a stroke, both treated mice and a control group of mice were placed on a balance beam to observe motor coordination. The untreated mice displayed a pronounced loss of coordination with slips and falls. Treated mice had no difficulty with balance, ambulation or turning around on the beam.

"You couldn't even tell they had a stroke," said senior author Mark S. Shapiro, Ph.D., professor of physiology at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio. "They ran across the balance beam like gymnasts."

Histological analysis of the brain tissue of treated mice showed significantly reduced damage to the tissue after the stroke, compared to untreated mice. The protective effects of the medication were observed in treated mice up to five days after the stroke, said Sonya Bierbower, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the report.

Duration of effect

Future studies will assess how long brain function can be protected after a stroke, and whether injury-related seizures can be prevented. "We are also going to see if we can prevent strokes in high-risk animal models," Dr. Bierbower said.

Retigabine and similar agents open specific proteins called potassium ion channels, whose action stops the electrical activity of nerve cells in the brain. The San Antonio team studied ischemic stroke, in which oxygen and nutrients are suddenly cut off due to a clot in a blood vessel. This is the type of stroke most often seen in humans. "We thought if we could stop the neurons from firing, stopping their electrical activity, we could conserve their resources until the time their blood supply was restored," Dr. Shapiro said. "This proved to be the case."

Cells starved of oxygen and nutrients for six hours are compromised and the process of dying is nearly impossible to reverse. Moreover, when cells die, they release factors that trigger many types of responses including an inflammatory response, leading to more cell death in the areas around the blood clot.

tPA for clots

A drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) treats stroke by dissolving clots to restore blood flow, but this has significant limitations. tPA causes severe thinning of the blood, so it is not an option for patients who have high blood pressure, a history of bleeding or weak blood vessels. tPA is most effective in the first hours after a stroke, but its later use may do more damage than good.

Directly affecting nerve cells

Potassium channel openers such as retigabine work on a completely different system. "They have nothing to do with thinning blood, but preserving cells by putting a brake on their electrical activity," Dr. Shapiro said.

"It's treating the first step in the sequence and stopping the more damaging secondary effects," Dr. Bierbower said. "These agents directly affect the nerve cells themselves."

FDA approved for epilepsy

Because retigabine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the American brand name Ezogabine as an anticonvulsant, physicians may use it off label in stroke patients. FDA approval for specifically this drug as stroke therapy will require a clinical trial to be conducted, and a team of neurologists and neurosurgeons at the Health Science Center is considering it, Dr. Shapiro said.

"As a leading cause of death and disability, stroke poses a major risk to our society," said David F. Jimenez, M.D., FACS, professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Health Science Center. "It is very exciting to see that our collaborative work with our colleagues in physiology could provide a superb way to ameliorate the harmful effects of stroke on our patients."

Pregnancy Brain

13 Week Ultrasound Spina Bifida

Content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or health, safety, legal or financial advice..View the latest health news and explore articles on fitness,t, nutrition, parenting, relationships, medicine, diseases and healthy living at CNN Health..Fat in feces points to early presence of colorectal cancer Brain scans of children with Tourette's offer clues about disorder Patients report symptom improvement .TODAY Parents is the premiere destination for parenting news, advice community. Find the latest parenting trends and tips for your kids and family on TODAY.com..What's in a Name? What Every Consumer Should Know About Foods and Flavors; 4 Medication Safety Tips for Older Adults; FDA: Cutting-Edge Technology Sheds Light on .Diagnosis. Microcephaly can be diagnosed during pregnancy or after the baby is born. During Pregnancy. During pregnancy, microcephaly can sometimes be diagnosed with .The World Health Organization has declared an international health emergency over the spread of the Zika virus, now known to cause devastating birth defects..Discussion. Microcephaly usually results from abnormal brain development. The long-term consequences of microcephaly depend on underlying brain anomalies and can .Fact sheet on normal sleep and sleep disorders developed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke NINDS ..The probes in the rats' heads, however, told a different story. While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain was working furiously..

13 Week Ultrasound Spina Bifida

Immune System And Gut Microbiota

Fat in feces points to early presence of colorectal cancer Brain scans of children with Tourette's offer clues about disorder Patients report symptom improvement .View the latest health news and explore articles on fitness,t, nutrition, parenting, relationships, medicine, diseases and healthy living at CNN Health..TODAY Parents is the premiere destination for parenting news, advice community. Find the latest parenting trends and tips for your kids and family on TODAY.com..Content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or health, safety, legal or financial advice..Diagnosis. Microcephaly can be diagnosed during pregnancy or after the baby is born. During Pregnancy. During pregnancy, microcephaly can sometimes be diagnosed .What's in a Name? What Every Consumer Should Know About Foods and Flavors; 4 Medication Safety Tips for Older Adults; FDA: Cutting-Edge Technology Sheds Light .Discussion. Microcephaly usually results from abnormal brain development. The long-term consequences of microcephaly depend on underlying brain anomalies and can . The World Health Organization has declared an international health emergency over the spread of the Zika virus, now known to cause devastating birth . The probes in the rats' heads, however, told a different story. While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain was working furiously.. Fact sheet on normal sleep and sleep disorders developed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke NINDS ..

DYING BRAIN CELLS CUE NEW BRAIN CELLS TO GROW IN SONGBIRD

Brain cells that multiply to help birds sing their best during breeding season are known to die back naturally later in the year. For the first time researchers have described the series of events that cues new neuron growth each spring, and it all appears to start with a signal from the expiring cells the previous fall that primes the brain to start producing stem cells

If scientists can further tap into the process and understand how those signals work, it might lead to ways to exploit these signals and encourage replacement of cells in human brains that have lost neurons naturally because of aging, severe depression or Alzheimer's disease, said Tracy Larson, a University of Washington doctoral student in biology. She's lead author of a paper in the Sept. 23 Journal of Neuroscience on brain cell birth that follows natural brain cell death.

Neuroscientists have long known that new neurons are generated in the adult brains of many animals, but the birth of new neurons - or neurogenesis - appears to be limited in mammals and humans, especially where new neurons are generated after there's been a blow to the head, stroke or some other physical loss of brain cells, Larson said. That process, referred to as "regenerative" neurogenesis, has been studied in mammals since the 1990s.

This is the first published study to examine the brain's ability to replace cells that have been lost naturally, Larson said.

"Many neurodegenerative disorders are not injury-induced," the co-authors write, "so it is critical to determine if and how reactive neurogenesis occurs under non-injury-induced neurodegenerative conditions."

The researchers worked with Gambel's white-crowned sparrows, a medium-sized species 7 inches (18 centimeters) long that breeds in Alaska, then winters in California and Mexico. Sometimes in flocks of more than 100 birds, they can be so plentiful in parts of California that they are considered pests. The ones in this work came from Eastern Washington.

Like most songbirds, Gambel's white-crowned sparrows experience growth in the area of the brain that controls song output during the breeding season when a superior song helps them attract mates and define their territories. At the end of the season, probably because having extra cells exacts a toll in terms of energy and steroids they require, the cells begin dying naturally and the bird's song degrades.

Gambel's white-crowned sparrows are particularly good to work with because their breeding cycle is closely tied to the amount of sunlight they receive. Give them 20 hours of light in the lab, along with the right increase of steroids, and they are ready to breed. Cut the light to eight to 12 hours and taper the steroids, the breeding behavior ends.

"As the hormone levels decrease, the cells in the part of the brain controlling song no longer have the signal to 'stay alive,'" Larson said. "Those cells undergo programmed cell death - or cell suicide as some call it. As those cells die it is likely they are releasing some kind of signal that somehow gets transmitted to the stem cells that reside in the brain. Whatever that signal is then triggers those cells to divide and replace the loss of the cell that sent the signal to begin with."

The next spring, all that's needed is for steroids to ramp up and new cells start to proliferate in the song center of the brain.

"This paper doesn't describe the exact nature of the signals that stimulate proliferation," Larson said. "We're just describing the phenomenon that there is this connection between cells dying and this stem cell proliferation. Finding the signal is the next step."

"Tracy really nailed this down by going in and blocking cell death at the end of the breeding season," said Eliot Brenowitz, UW professor of psychology and of biology, and co-author on the paper. "There are chemicals you can use to turn off the cell suicide pathway. When this was done, far fewer stem cells divided. You don't get that big uptick in new neurons being born. That's important because it shows there's something about the cells dying that turns on the replacement process.'

"There's no reason to think what goes on in a bird brain doesn't also go on in mammal brains, in human brains," Brenowitz says. "As far as we know, the molecules are the same, the pathways are the same, the hormones are the same. That's the ultimate purpose of all this, to identify these molecular mechanisms that will be of use in repairing human brains."

In mammals, the area of the brain that controls the sense of smell and the one that is thought to have a role in memories can produce tiny numbers of new brain cells but it is not understood how or why. The numbers of new cells is so low that trying to identify and quantify if dying cells are being replaced and if so, the steps that are involved, is much more difficult than when using a songbird like Gambel's white-crowned sparrow, Larson and Brenowitz said.

The other co-authors on the paper are Nivretta Thatra, who started working with Larson while still in high school, continued while earning her UW undergraduate degree and is now at the Allen Institute for Brain Science; and Brian Lee, who worked in Brenowitz's UW lab while earning his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the UW Department of Biology.

SIGNATURE OF AGING IN BRAIN SCIENTISTS SUGGEST THAT THE BRAINS IMMUNOLOGICAL AGE IS WHAT COUNTS

How the brain ages is still largely an open question -- in part because this organ is mostly insulated from direct contact with other systems in the body, including the blood and immune systems. In research that was recently published in Science, Weizmann Institute researchers Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Neurobiology Department and Dr. Ido Amit of Immunology Department found evidence of a unique "signature" that may be the "missing link" between cognitive decline and aging. The scientists believe that this discovery may lead, in the future, to treatments that can slow or reverse cognitive decline in older people

Until a decade ago, scientific dogma held that the blood-brain barrier prevents the blood-borne immune cells from attacking and destroying brain tissue. Yet in a long series of studies, Schwartz's group had shown that the immune system actually plays an important role both in healing the brain after injury and in maintaining the brain's normal functioning. They have found that this brain-immune interaction occurs across a barrier that is actually a unique interface within the brain's territory.

This interface, known as the choroid plexus, is found in each of the brain's four ventricles, and it separates the blood from the cerebrospinal fluid. Schwartz: "The choroid plexus acts as a 'remote control' for the immune system to affect brain activity. Biochemical 'danger' signals released from the brain are sensed through this interface; in turn, blood-borne immune cells assist by communicating with the choroid plexus.This cross-talk is important for preserving cognitive abilities and promoting the generation of new brain cells."

This finding led Schwartz and her group to suggest that cognitive decline over the years may be connected not only to one's "chronological age" but also to one's "immunological age," that is, changes in immune function over time might contribute to changes in brain function -- not necessarily in step with the count of one's years.

To test this theory, Schwartz and research students Kuti Baruch and Aleksandra Deczkowska teamed up with Amit and his research group in the Immunology Department. The researchers used next-generation sequencing technology to map changes in gene expression in 11 different organs, including the choroid plexus, in both young and aged mice, to identify and compare pathways involved in the aging process.

That is how they identified a strikingly unique "signature of aging" that exists solely in the choroid plexus -- not in the other organs. They discovered that one of the main elements of this signature was interferon beta -- a protein that the body normally produces to fight viral infection. This protein appears to have a negative effect on the brain: When the researchers injected an antibody that blocks interferon beta activity into the cerebrospinal fluid of the older mice, their cognitive abilities were restored, as was their ability to form new brain cells. The scientists were also able to identify this unique signature in elderly human brains. The scientists hope that this finding may, in the future, help prevent or reverse cognitive decline in old age, by finding ways to rejuvenate the "immunological age" of the brain.

EARTHQUAKES PROVE TO BE AN UNEXPECTED HELP IN INTERPRETING BRAIN ACTIVITY OF VERY PREMATURE BABIES

University of Helsinki researchers have partnered with Swedish and Australian researchers to create a "brainstorm barometer," which allows computers to calculate the brain functions of very premature babies during their first hours of life. The new research method is based on the hypothesis that the brainstorms generated by the billions of neurons inside a baby's head are governed by the same rules as other massive natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, forest fires or snow avalanches.

Giant strides have been taken in the early care of very premature infants in postnatal intensive care units during the past two decades. Doctors can now support the function of especially the lungs, heart and the circulatory system so as to guarantee the survival of most of even extremely premature infants. Despite a good start, many of these may still have lifelong problems with brain function, such as attention deficit disorders or difficulty with visual function. For this reason, the primary focus of developing care for premature infants has been on securing brain development.

The biggest risks in the development of a very premature baby are concentrated on the first days of life, when intensive care seeks to find the care balance suitable for each individual child.

"At this stage it would be vitally important to be able to track the child's brain function and to identify the babies whose brains are at particular risk," says Sampsa Vanhatalo, PhD, who leads the University of Helsinki's Baby Brain Activity (BABA) research group based at the HUS Children's Hospital.

The brains of very premature babies being treated in intensive care have been tracked with continuous electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring, but evaluating the EEG results has proven to be a challenge:

"The brain function of very premature babies is completely different from that of older children or adults, meaning that the currently used methods of EEG interpretation are poorly suited for use on premature babies," Vanhatalo explains.

Storms help the brain mature

Researchers have found that certain episodes, brainstorms of a kind, occur in the brains of very premature babies and are critical for the maturation of the baby's brain. Together with Swedish and Australian researchers, Vanhatalo has now developed a completely new way of evaluating such brainstorms in newborn very premature infants.

"Our research was published in the journal Brain, and it is the result of exceptionally broad-based international cooperation. It involved specialists of different medical fields, physicists, mathematicians and engineers," Vanhatalo says.

The patient material for the research came from Dr. Lena Hellström-Westas' research on premature babies in Sweden. Hellström-Westas is a professor in neonatology at Uppsala University. Vanhatalo contributed the neurophysiological expertise of his research group. Finally, Professor Michael Breakspear's computational neuroscience research group in Australia developed a new kind of analysis method for the EEG signal.

The laws of nature hold true in the brain

Breakspear's research group began to develop mathematical methods used in geology and basic physics research after it was found that the brainstorms in very premature babies were astonishingly similar to the "crackling noise" that occurs on small scales in weakly magnetised metals and large-scales during earthquakes.

Ultimately, the research groups worked together to generate a clear instrument, a brainstorm barometer if you will, which can be used by a computer to calculate the state of a very premature baby's brain during the first hours of life. Of greatest clinical interest was the observation that the results from this barometer correlated significantly with the child's cognitive development at age two.

"In terms of science, this has already revolutionised the idea of what we can observe of the brain function in very premature babies. This method is the first source of objective data on the messages the brain of a very premature baby may be sending to the doctors taking care of the child during the first hours of life," Vanhatalo describes. "It's still too early to say how the brainstorm measurements we have discovered will impact the care given to each premature baby. Our discovery helps doctors identify which children are in need of special attention, and which ones have brains that are fine on their own. This is crucial information that opens the door for new targeted care studies."

The EEG instrument created in the study is a collection of sophisticated mathematical functions, combined ingeniously to create a software component for analysing the EEG signal. This component can be added to the software of existing brain monitors. In terms of technology, the adoption of the method is no more difficult than downloading new apps onto our smartphones.

"The interest of EEG monitor manufacturers to engage in product development will be the bottleneck. Luckily the market is very competitive, and new manufacturers need to introduce innovations that are necessary for hospital work," Vanhatalo points out.

HOW THE BRAIN FINDS WHAT ITS LOOKING FOR

Despite the barrage of visual information the brain receives, it retains a remarkable ability to focus on important and relevant items. This fall, for example, NFL quarterbacks will be rewarded handsomely for how well they can focus their attention on color and motion -- being able to quickly judge the jersey colors of teammates and opponents and where they're headed is a valuable skill. How the brain accomplishes this feat, however, has been poorly understood

Now, University of Chicago scientists have identified a brain region that appears central to perceiving the combination of color and motion. They discovered a unique population of neurons that shift in sensitivity toward different colors and directions depending on what is being attended -- the red jersey of a receiver headed toward an end zone, for example. The study, published Sept. 4 in the journal Neuron, sheds light on a fundamental neurological process that is a key step in the biology of attention.

"Most of the objects in any given visual scene are not that important, so how does the brain select or attend to important ones?" said study senior author David Freedman, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago. "We've zeroed in on an area of the brain that appears central to this process. It does this in a very flexible way, changing moment by moment depending on what is being looked for."

The visual cortex of the brain possesses multiple, interconnected regions that are responsible for processing different aspects of the raw visual signal gathered by the eyes. Basic information on motion and color are known to route through two such regions, but how the brain combines these streams into something usable for decision-making or other higher-order processes remained unclear.

To investigate this process, Freedman and postdoctoral fellow Guilhem Ibos, PhD, studied the response of individual neurons during a simple task. Monkeys were shown a rapid series of visual images. An initial image showed either a group of red dots moving upwards or yellow dots moving downwards, which served as an instruction for which specific colors and directions were relevant during that trial. The subjects were rewarded when they released a lever when this image later reappeared. Subsequent images were composed of different colors of dots moving in different directions, among which was the initial image.

Dynamic neurons 

Freedman and Ibos looked at neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), a region highly interconnected with brain areas involved in vision, motor control and cognitive functions. As subjects performed the task and looked for a specific combination of color and motion, LIP neurons became highly active. They did not respond, however, when the subjects passively viewed the same images without an accompanying task.

When the team further investigated the responses of LIP neurons, they discovered that the neurons possessed a unique characteristic. Individual neurons shifted their sensitivity to color and direction toward the relevant color and motion features for that trial. When the subject looked for red dots moving upwards, for example, a neuron would respond strongly to directions close to upward motion and to colors close to red. If the task was switched to another color and direction seconds later, that same neuron would be more responsive to the new combination.

"Shifts in feature tuning had been postulated a long time ago by theoretical studies," Ibos said. "This is the first time that neurons in the brain have been shown to shift their selectivity depending on which features are relevant to solve a task."

Freedman and Ibos developed a model for how the LIP brings together both basic color and motion information. Attention likely affects that process through signals from higher-order areas of the brain that affect LIP neuron selectivity. The team believes that this region plays an important role in making sense of basic sensory information, and they are trying to better understand the brain-wide neuronal circuitry involved in this process.

"Our study suggests that this area of the brain brings together information from multiple areas throughout the brain," Freedman said. "It integrates inputs -- visual, motor, cognitive inputs related to memory and decision making -- and represents them in a way that helps solve the task at hand."

HIDDEN BRAIN SIGNATURES IN VEGETATIVE STATE

Scientists in Cambridge have found hidden signatures in the brains of people in a vegetative state, which point to networks that could support consciousness even when a patient appears to be unconscious and unresponsive. The study could help doctors identify patients who are aware despite being unable to communicate.

There has been a great deal of interest recently in how much patients in a vegetative state following severe brain injury are aware of their surroundings. Although unable to move and respond, some of these patients are able to carry out tasks such as imagining playing a game of tennis. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, which measures brain activity, researchers have previously been able to record activity in the pre-motor cortex, the part of the brain which deals with movement, in apparently unconscious patients asked to imagine playing tennis.

Now, a team of researchers led by scientists at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, have used high-density electroencephalographs (EEG) and a branch of mathematics known as 'graph theory' to study networks of activity in the brains of 32 patients diagnosed as vegetative and minimally conscious and compare them to healthy adults. The findings of the research are published today in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The study was funded mainly by the Wellcome Trust, the National Institute of Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The researchers showed that the rich and diversely connected networks that support awareness in the healthy brain are typically -- but importantly, not always -- impaired in patients in a vegetative state. Some vegetative patients had well-preserved brain networks that look similar to those of healthy adults -- these patients were those who had shown signs of hidden awareness by following commands such as imagining playing tennis.

Dr Srivas Chennu from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge says: "Understanding how consciousness arises from the interactions between networks of brain regions is an elusive but fascinating scientific question. But for patients diagnosed as vegetative and minimally conscious, and their families, this is far more than just an academic question -- it takes on a very real significance. Our research could improve clinical assessment and help identify patients who might be covertly aware despite being uncommunicative."

The findings could help researchers develop a relatively simple way of identifying which patients might be aware whilst in a vegetative state. Unlike the 'tennis test', which can be a difficult task for patients and requires expensive and often unavailable fMRI scanners, this new technique uses EEG and could therefore be administered at a patient's bedside. However, the tennis test is stronger evidence that the patient is indeed conscious, to the extent that they can follow commands using their thoughts. The researchers believe that a combination of such tests could help improve accuracy in the prognosis for a patient.

Dr Tristan Bekinschtein from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, adds: "Although there are limitations to how predictive our test would be used in isolation, combined with other tests it could help in the clinical assessment of patients. If a patient's 'awareness' networks are intact, then we know that they are likely to be aware of what is going on around them. But unfortunately, they also suggest that vegetative patients with severely impaired networks at rest are unlikely to show any signs of consciousness."

FROM THE TWITCHING WHISKERS OF BABES NAP TIME BEHAVIOR SHAPES THE BRAIN

The whiskers of newborn rats twitch as they sleep, and that could open the door to new understandings about the intimate connections between brain and body. The discovery reinforces the notion that such involuntary movements are a vital contributor to the development of sensorimotor systems, say researchers who report their findings along with video of those whisker twitches on Oct. 18 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication

"We found that even whiskers twitch during sleep -- and they do so in infant rats long before they move their whiskers in the coordinated fashion known as whisking," said Mark Blumberg of The University of Iowa. "This discovery opens up new avenues for investigating how we develop critical connections between the sensors in our body and the parts of the brain that interpret and organize sensory information."

In fact, the baby rats' whiskers don't just twitch, they twitch very rapidly and in complex ways. Those twitches during sleep are tied to bursts of activity in the brain, which aren't often observed when rats are awake.

Other parts of the body twitch spontaneously during sleep, too, including the eyes (think "rapid eye movements") and the limbs. "Spontaneous motor activity can play many different roles in early development and even throughout life," Blumberg explains. "It can be a source of brain activity in general as well as a source of highly specific, patterned activity that can help shape specific neural circuits."

But no one had given much thought to this activity in the very special case of whiskers, which are as important to rats as eyes are to humans. Each individual whisker maps to discrete regions of the brain that process information from that individual whisker alone. The whisker-specific brain regions form arrangements that map beautifully to the physical arrangements of whiskers on the snout.

That precise organization has made the study of whiskers very popular amongst neuroscientists seeking a basic understanding of the developmental mechanisms linking peripheral sensors and brain, and that's what makes this new discovery all the more intriguing. It might also give us a new appreciation for the important work infants are doing even as they sleep.

"One of the jobs of the infant is to learn how all the parts of the body function even as those parts are growing in size and proportion," Blumberg says. "It is a difficult job."

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HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES FOR BRAIN TUMOR

A brain tumor is a mass or growth of abnormal cells in your brain or close to your brain.

Many different types of brain tumors exist. Some brain tumors are noncancerous (benign), and some brain tumors are cancerous (malignant). Brain tumors can begin in your brain (primary brain tumors), or cancer can begin in other parts of your body and spread to your brain (secondary, or metastatic, brain tumors).

How quickly a brain tumor grows can vary greatly. The growth rate as well as location of a brain tumor determines how it will affect the function of your nervous system.

The signs and symptoms of a brain tumor vary greatly and depend on the brain tumor's size, location and rate of growth.

General signs and symptoms caused by brain tumors may include:-New onset or change in pattern of headaches, Headaches that gradually become more frequent and more severe, Unexplained nausea or vomiting, Vision problems, such as blurred vision, double vision or loss of peripheral vision, Gradual loss of sensation or movement in an arm or a leg, Difficulty with balance, Speech difficulties, Confusion in everyday matters, Personality or behavior changes, Seizures, especially in someone who doesn't have a history of seizures,Hearing problems

HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES

TUBERCULINUM 200—Start treatment with this remedy.This will arrest the disease and cure the headache

CALCAREA CARB. 200- Tumor of brain. Headache and vertigo on turning the head. Icy coldness of the head. Tumors with roots

CALCAREA FLUORICA 200- An excellent remedy when the tumor is hard and stony. Creaking noise in the head. Great depression. Sparks before the eyes. Brain fag and vomiting.

CONIUM MACULATUM 200- Headache with nausea and vomiting. Sensation as if a foreign body was under the skull. Scorched feeling on top. Vertigo on turning the eyes, when lying down or turning over in bed. Gait difficult, staggering. Sudden loss of strength while walking

KALI IODIDE 30- Syphilitic history. Lightening like pain through the sides of the head, over the eyes and nose. Worse from heat of piloow
MERC IODIDE 30- Head remedy for arresting bony brain tumors of the skull

PLUMBUM METALLICUM 200- Epileptic form of convulsions, giddiness  and in some cases coma. Pain as if a ball rose from the throat to the brain. Voices in the ears

SLPHUR 200- An intercurrent remedy

THUJA OCC. 200- Brain tumor with migraine headache . Flatulence. Constipation. The patient is emotional and sentimental. 

MOTHERS SOOTHING PRESENCE MAKES PAIN GO AWAY CHANGES GENE ACTIVITY IN INFANTS BRAIN

A mother's "TLC" not only can help soothe pain in infants, but it may also impact early brain development by altering gene activity in a part of the brain involved in emotions, according to new study from NYU Langone Medical Center.

By carefully analyzing what genes were active in infant rat brains when the mother was present or not present, the NYU researchers found that several hundred genes were more, or less, active in rat infants experiencing pain than in those that were not. With their mothers present, however, fewer than 100 genes were similarly expressed.

According to senior study investigator and neurobiologist Regina Sullivan, PhD, who is scheduled to present her team's findings at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 18, the research is believed to be the first to show the short-term effects of maternal caregiving in a distressed infant pup's brain. The study was also designed to support her research into the long-term consequences of differences in how mammals, including humans, are nurtured from birth.

"Our study shows that a mother comforting her infant in pain does not just elicit a behavioral response, but also the comforting itself modifies -- for better or worse -- critical neural circuitry during early brain development," says Sullivan, a professor at the NYU School of Medicine and its affiliated Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.

For the study, researchers performed genetic analyses on tissue from the almond-sized amygdala region of the infant rat pups' brains that is responsible for processing emotions, such as fear and pleasure.

Sullivan, whose earlier research showed how the mother's presence controlled electrical signaling in the infant pup's brain, says her latest findings shed insight on the complexity of treating pain in newborns.

"Nobody wants to see an infant suffer, in rats or any other species," says Sullivan. "But if opiate drugs are too dangerous to use in human infants because of their addictive properties, then the challenge remains for researchers to find alternative environmental stimuli, including maternal presence, coddling, or other cues, such as a mother's scent, that could relieve the pain."

Sullivan cautions, however, that the long-term consequences of these genetic modifications must also be compared to the short-term benefits for tying pain stimuli during infancy to such a powerful symbol of safety and security as the infant's mother.

"The more we learn about nurturing the infant brain during infancy, the better prepared we are to deal long-term with treating problems that arise from pain, and physical and mental abuse experienced during infancy," says Sullivan.