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Yale School of Medicine expands research using transcranial magnetic stimulation for schizophrenia

Yale School of Medicine researchers are recruiting patients nationally for a clinical trial using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help still the voices that are so troubling to some persons with schizophrenia.

9 Mar 2006

Johns Hopkins scientists identify protein fragment which may lead to a simple test for multiple sclerosis

Johns Hopkins scientists report the discovery of a protein found only in cerebrospinal fluid that they say might be useful in identifying a subgroup of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) or identifying those at risk for the debilitating autoimmune disorder.

7 Mar 2006

Extensive study of natalizumab

Scientists have completed an extensive study of more than 3,000 patients who received a promising anti-inflammatory drug, natalizumab, that was linked to three cases of a serious brain infection in large clinical trials halted in early 2005.

7 Mar 2006

Significant advance in our understanding of how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our ears use the most efficient way to process the sounds we hear, from babbling brooks to wailing babies.

27 Feb 2006

Hand-held device brings speech to impaired

A middle-aged woman makes plans over the telephone to get together with a friend, even though she cannot talk after suffering a stroke.

24 Feb 2006

Hormone aldosterone linked to quality of hearing

Researchers have linked a hormone known to adjust levels of key brain chemicals to the quality of our hearing as we age. The more of the hormone that older people have in their bloodstream, the better their hearing is, and the less of the hormone, the worse their hearing is.

16 Feb 2006

Less is more hypothesis - gene loss may explain unique human traits

Humans and chimps share most of their genes, yet they differ dramatically in many ways - their walk, the sizes of their brains and their capacities for speech and language, for example.

16 Feb 2006

Not every stutterer is a problem case: over-reacting can make stuttering worse

If a child often stops in the middle of a sentence and repeats individual sounds or syllables, this does not inevitably mean that the child is a stutterer.

16 Feb 2006

Most Americans don't know about Health Savings Accounts

A new nationally representative poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines what the public took away from President Bush’s State of the Union address, finding that the health messages in the speech have yet to register with most Americans.

16 Feb 2006

Treatment method improves survival for advanced laryngeal cancer

Chemotherapy and radiation can be effective at treating cancer of the larynx, or voice box, without removing the organ that controls speech and swallowing. But it doesn't work for everyone.

13 Feb 2006

Rett disease progression altered by changing expression of gene

Scientists from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Brandeis University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in the journal Neuron that increasing levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) alleviates symptoms in a mouse model of the childhood disorder Rett Syndrome.

13 Feb 2006

Abraham Lincoln may have suffered from movement disorder

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota have discovered a gene mutation in the descendants of Abraham Lincoln's grandparents that suggests the Civil War president himself might have also suffered from a disease that destroys nerve cells in the cerebellum-- the part of the brain that controls movement.

7 Feb 2006

Sex calms the nerves

According to a Scottish psychologist the best way to calm your nerves prior to making a speech or giving a presentation in public, is to have sex, (not in public)!

26 Jan 2006

Quinolone antibiotic eardrops best for treating middle ear infections

Topical quinolone antibiotics can clear aural discharge better than systemic antibiotics. This was the finding of a systematic review of literature published in the latest update of The Cochrane Library.

25 Jan 2006

Breakthrough in brain injury study at University of Leicester

A breakthrough by scientists at the University of Leicester in understanding mechanisms within the brain which cause injury could lead to better treatments in the future for conditions such as as cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis.

24 Jan 2006

Ataxia gene identified

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School have discovered the gene responsible for a type of ataxia, an incurable degenerative brain disease affecting movement and coordination.

23 Jan 2006

Face perception is mediated by a distributed neural system in the human brain

New research indicates that an area of the brain thought to act in reward circuitry may represent a phase in visual processing during which sexual orientation modulates how we perceive individual faces. The findings are reported by Felicitas Kranz and Alumit Ishai of the University of Zurich.

11 Jan 2006