Central Nervous System News and Research

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Brain tumor vaccine shows promise

A vaccine for treating a recurrent cancer of the central nervous system that occurs primarily in the brain has shown promise in preliminary data from a clinical trial at the University of California, San Francisco.

17 Apr 2007

New hope for spinal cord injury sufferers

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most significant forms of neurotrauma with major economic and social impact.

17 Apr 2007

Single master gene crucial for nerve cell insulation

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered how a defect in a single master gene disrupts the process by which several genes interact to create myelin, a fatty coating that covers nerve cells and increases the speed and reliability of their electrical signals.

17 Apr 2007

MS patients not receiving medications to slow disease progression

Neurologists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have found that many patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) are not taking or being prescribed drugs approved to treat the disease.

17 Apr 2007

Cortical mapping helps brain tumor removal

In 2006, it was estimated that 18,820 new cases were diagnosed and 12,820 deaths were associated with malignant tumors of the brain and other parts of the central nervous system.

17 Apr 2007

Research sheds new light on central nervous system

Research by Renee Theiss, Jason Kuo and C J Heckman, which has just been published in The Journal of Physiology, throws light on how information is processed in the Central Nervous System (CNS) to drive movement.

16 Apr 2007

Astrocytes may contribute to Lou Gehrig's disease

Two papers by Columbia and Harvard researchers report for the first time that astrocytes (the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system), which carry a mutated gene known to cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease), induce motor neuron death.

16 Apr 2007

Eslicarbazepine shows promise for treating epileptic seizures

A new study appearing in the latest issue of Epilepsia shows that a new drug called Eslicarbazepine (ESL) shows promise as a treatment for epilepsy patients whose symptoms remain uncontrolled with existing medications.

7 Apr 2007

Researchers show blood-brain barrier damage could affect multiple sclerosis severity

Immunology researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson studying a multiple sclerosis (MS)-like disease in mice have shown that the amount of "damage" to the central nervous system's protective blood-brain barrier, in essence, opening it, almost always correlates to the severity of the disease.

7 Apr 2007

Eli Lilly acquires Hypnion

Eli Lilly and Company has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Hypnion, Inc., a privately held neuroscience drug discovery company focused on sleep disorder research.

3 Apr 2007

Stem cell therapy shows promise for degenerative diseases of the eye

For the millions of Americans whose vision is slowly ebbing due to degenerative diseases of the eye, the lowly neural progenitor cell may be riding to the rescue.

3 Apr 2007

Clearer picture of neuronal coding

The validity of a leading theory that has held a glimmer of hope for unraveling the intricacies of the brain has just been called into question.

2 Apr 2007

Brain's immune system plays protective role in early Alzheimer's disease

The immune system's response against amyloid-beta, the protein that forms plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, appears to protect the brain from damage in early stages of the devastating neurological disorder.

30 Mar 2007

Sedative-hypnotic drugs to get stronger warning labels

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requested that all manufacturers of sedative-hypnotic drug products, a class of drugs used to induce and/or maintain sleep, strengthen their product labeling to include stronger language concerning potential risks.

14 Mar 2007

Chemical cues turn embryonic stem cells into cerebellar neurons

Embryonic stem cells have shown a great deal of promise for alleviating heart disease and regenerating organs. But for some of the conditions for which people hold out the most hope - Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, for example - there's been little evidence to date that stem cells can work.

14 Mar 2007

Warning about the indiscriminate use of diet drugs

The United Nations (UN) has issued a warning about the rise in a number of countries of the use of diet drugs to lose weight.

1 Mar 2007

Depression linked with a specific autoantibody and central nervous system dysfunction in lupus

Systemic lupus erythomatosus (SLE), often simply called lupus, is a complex autoimmune disease marked by joint pain, skin rashes, extreme fatigue, and depression, among other symptoms.

27 Feb 2007

Reduced brain growth in alcoholics with family drinking history

The brains of alcohol-dependent individuals are affected not only by their own heavy drinking, but also by genetic or environmental factors associated with their parents- drinking, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

21 Feb 2007

Hormone prolactin key to repairing nerve cell damage

The mystery of why multiple sclerosis (MS) tends to go into remission while women are pregnant may be the secret to overcoming the devastating neurodegenerative disease, according to University of Calgary researchers who have shown that a pregnancy-related hormone is responsible for rebuilding the protective coating around nerve cells.

20 Feb 2007

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia

Reviewing published reports, Ferkol and Margaret Leigh, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), found that neonatal respiratory distress was a common clinical symptom of PCD, a chronic airway disease that affects about 1 in 15,000 children.

20 Feb 2007