Encephalopathy News and Research

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Minimally invasive technique to directly measure cardiac output in newborns

The amount of blood that the heart pumps in one minute (cardiac output) can be directly measured safely in newborns by monitoring changes in blood velocity after injecting saline, indicates a paper published online Dec. 17, 2019 in the Journal of Pediatrics and Neonatal Medicine.

8 Jan 2020

Study shows the feasibility of using gene therapy to treat chronic traumatic encephalopathy

A new study shows the feasibility of using gene therapy to treat the progressive neurodegenerative disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

3 Jan 2020

Study measures brain injury from boxing, MMA in younger and older fighters

For boxers and mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters, is there a safe level of exposure to head trauma? A new study shows different effects in the brain for younger, current fighters compared to older, retired fighters.

23 Dec 2019

Declining dementia rates may be due to generational differences in lifetime lead exposure

To the medical community's surprise, several studies from the US, Canada, and Europe suggest a promising downward trend in the incidence and prevalence of dementia. Important risk factors for dementia, such as mid-life obesity and mid-life diabetes, have been increasing rapidly, so the decline in dementia incidence is particularly perplexing.

19 Dec 2019

Developing brain vulnerable to HIV despite early treatment

A new study on how the HIV infection affects the development of intellect and other areas of brain development in children shows that early treatment doesn’t completely avert these negative outcomes. The paper, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases shows that HIV in children can lead to impaired learning, reasoning and brain functioning.

18 Dec 2019

Researchers identify rare genetic disorder

A team of South Australian researchers has cracked a rare gene variant for a disorder that sees a normal healthy child start to lose muscle tone and motor skills, ultimately losing the capacity to walk and use language.

16 Dec 2019

DNA-modulated liquid droplets may explain how prion proteins clump

Researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, have identified that the interaction between prion proteins and DNA may be behind the formation of protein amyloid aggregates and of the emergence of neurodegenerative diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other spongiform encephalopathies.

22 Nov 2019

Ammonia levels do not guide clinical management of hepatic encephalopathy in cirrhotic patients

The liver performs several critical functions including filtering blood, detoxifying chemicals and metabolizing drugs.

19 Nov 2019

Study finds lower levels of liver decompensation in pregnant women with cirrhosis

Data from a new study presented this week at The Liver Meeting – held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and funded by the AASLD Foundation – found that less than two percent of pregnant women with cirrhosis had liver decompensation within one year of delivery, and their odds of decompensation is much lower than non-pregnant women with cirrhosis.

10 Nov 2019

Game-changing diagnostic test for prion diseases

Researchers have developed an effective way of testing for prion diseases, a group of fatal neurodegenerative illnesses caused by abnormally folded proteins.

8 Nov 2019

Natural language processing helps evaluate electronic messages from ESLD patients

Natural language processing, the technology that lets computers read, decipher, understand and make sense of human language, is the driving force behind internet search engines, email filters, digital assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, and language-to-language translation apps.

From Johns Hopkins Medicine 7 Nov 2019

Doctors report first death from fecal microbiota transplant

Details of an investigational study have emerged after a man died following a fecal microbiate transplant. The events prompted the FDA to set new safety guidelines for the practice.

31 Oct 2019

Some plant foods causing paralysis, death, in malnourished populations

There are a lot of plants eaten for food that may also contain toxins that harm the brain and the nervous system, when present in amounts that cross the limit of individual tolerance. This happens when such toxin-containing foods are the chief or only source of nutrition.

26 Oct 2019

Researchers receive $9.7 million NIH grant to study TBI and neurodegenerative diseases

An international team of experts led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Glasgow has been awarded a $9.7 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and National Institute for Aging to establish CONNECT-TBI--a program spanning 12 institutions which will study traumatic brain injury and related neurodegenerative diseases.

24 Oct 2019

Study finds no link between youth contact sports and cognitive, mental health problems

Adolescents who play contact sports, including football, are no more likely to experience cognitive impairment, depression or suicidal thoughts in early adulthood than their peers, suggests a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 11,000 youth followed for 14 years.

21 Oct 2019

New test could detect abnormal forms of protein associated with tauopathies

National Institutes of Health scientists have developed an ultrasensitive new test to detect abnormal forms of the protein tau associated with uncommon types of neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies.

16 Oct 2019

Suppressing brain immune cells might prevent or delay the onset of dementia

Messy tangles of a protein called tau can be found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and some other neurodegenerative diseases. In Alzheimer's, the tangles coalesce just before tissue damage becomes visible in brain scans and people start to become forgetful and confused.

10 Oct 2019

Study shows relationship between duration of football played and CTE risk, severity

The risk and severity of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy increases with the number of years playing American football according to a new study that appears online in Annals of Neurology.

7 Oct 2019

Why granny’s herbs work to lower high blood pressure

A study from the University of California, Irvine, explains a hitherto unknown mechanism of action for bioactive molecules in commonly used plant-based folk medicines like fennel, camomile and lavender that are used to lower the blood pressure.

1 Oct 2019

Researchers aim to explore effects of age, gender on brain injury mechanics

Traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy have become common in athletes who suffer repeated blows to the head. Most recently, former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski revealed that he had sustained about 20 concussions during his nine-year career in the National Football League.

21 Sep 2019