Brain Surgery News and Research

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UCSF scientists solve mystery of how selective hearing works

The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works - how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs - is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco.

19 Apr 2012

Men more likely to experience complications after brain or spinal surgery

Men are twice as likely as women to experience complications after brain or spinal surgery, reports a study in the April issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

16 Apr 2012

New technique could help improve prognosis of patients with brain cancers

Like special-forces troops laser-tagging targets for a bomber pilot, tiny particles that can be imaged three different ways at once have enabled Stanford University School of Medicine scientists to remove brain tumors from mice with unprecedented accuracy.

16 Apr 2012

Three NJIT EDC high-tech companies win top awards at 2012 Venture Conference

Three high-tech companies based at NJIT's Enterprise Development Center (EDC) took top awards at the recent 2012 Venture Conference sponsored by the New Jersey Technology Council.

10 Apr 2012

WCI technique uses MRS to detect oncometabolites

Researchers at Winship Cancer Institute have developed a technique for detecting an "oncometabolite", a chemical produced by some brain tumors' warped metabolism, via non-invasive imaging.

23 Mar 2012

Neurosurgeon saves two boys with a parallel brain operation

A neurosurgeon saved the lives of two boys by performing simultaneous brain surgery on them both after they were rushed to hospital with identical injuries.

21 Mar 2012

Gamma Knife surgery stops growth of 'World's tallest living human'

Sultan Kosen won't be posting new world records for height anymore, but that's just fine with him. The Gamma Knife radiosurgery the 29-year-old Turkish man had in August 2010 has successfully stopped his growth at the height of 8 ft 3 in (251 cm). Mr. Kosen, who suffered the effects of acromegaly, has held the title of "World's Tallest Living Human" since September 2009, when his 8 ft plus stature edged 7 ft 9 in Xiu Xung from China.

From Elekta 17 Mar 2012

New telemetric system safe and effective for ICP measurement

A new implantable sensor device provides a less-invasive alternative for monitoring pressure within the skull (intracranial pressure, or ICP), suggests a pilot study in Operative Neurosurgery, a quarterly supplement to Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

16 Mar 2012

Surgical intervention can be life-restoring for people with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy

While the thought of any type of surgery can be disconcerting, the thought of brain surgery can be downright frightening. But for people with a particular form of epilepsy, surgical intervention can literally be life-restoring.

8 Mar 2012

AMTR soon after failure of AEDs may reduce risk of seizures in epilepsy patients

Patients with epilepsy who underwent brain surgery soon after failing to respond to drug treatment, but who also continued to receive drug therapy, had a lower risk of seizures during the 2nd year of follow-up compared to patients who received drug treatment alone, according to a study in the March 7 issue of JAMA.

7 Mar 2012

Early surgical intervention stops seizures and improves quality of life

3 Mar 2012

Preliminary results from Remedy Pharmaceuticals' RP-1127 Phase 2 trial on stroke

Each year, over 700,000 people in the United States suffer a stroke. For most, medical science can do very little. Some will die; a number will suffer debilitating aftereffects. Now, preliminary results of a Phase 2 clinical trial using Remedy Pharmaceuticals' new drug, RP-1127, presented at the 2012 International Stroke Conference in New Orleans on February 2, offer hope to many of these patients.

6 Feb 2012

Russian neurosurgical institute acquires Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion system

Russia's first Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion system has found a home at the renowned N.N. Burdenko Neurosurgical Institute, just a five-minute car ride from Moscow's Red Square.

From Elekta 6 Feb 2012

Treating 'brain tsunamis' could stop many victims of major head injury from further damage

Treating 'brain tsunamis' or 'killer waves' could stop many victims of major head injury from suffering additional brain damage, a study published in Lancet Neurology has found.

8 Dec 2011

Cedars-Sinai neurosurgeon seals off wide-neck aneurysm with new device

As Stephanie Weiss was coming to grips with the news she had two large and three small aneurysms in her brain, the Los Angeles independent travel consultant was told there was no minimally invasive way to treat at least one of the defects: a wide-neck aneurysm. She would have to undergo open-brain surgery.

8 Dec 2011

Fasudil drug shows promise against cerebral cavernous malformation

A drug treatment has been proven to prevent lesions from cerebral cavernous malformation — a brain blood vessel abnormality that can cause bleeding, epilepsy and stroke — for the first time in a new study.

28 Oct 2011

New surgical tool can identify tumor margins during brain operation

Scientists are reporting development and successful initial testing of a new tool that tells whether brain tissue is normal or cancerous while an operation is underway, so that surgeons can remove more of the tumor without removing healthy tissue, improving patients' survival.

20 Oct 2011

AAN updated guideline on how to best treat essential tremor

The American Academy of Neurology is releasing an updated guideline on how to best treat essential tremor, which is the most common type of tremor disorder and is often confused with other movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

20 Oct 2011

Researchers use gold nanorods to distinguish brain tumor from healthy tissue

"It's not brain surgery" is a phrase often uttered to dismiss a job's difficulty, but when the task actually is removing a brain tumor, even the slightest mistake could have serious health consequences. To help surgeons in such high-pressure situations, researchers from Prof. Adam Wax's team at Duke University's Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics and Biomedical Engineering Department have proposed a way to harness the unique optical properties of gold nanoparticles to clearly distinguish a brain tumor from the healthy, and vital, tissue that surrounds it.

13 Oct 2011

Latest breakthroughs in lasers and optics to be discussed at 95th OSA meeting

Scientists and engineers from around the world will gather in the heart of Silicon Valley next week to discuss some of the latest breakthroughs in lasers and optics and their applications to cutting-edge science, the development of new materials, and medicine.

13 Oct 2011