Home > Salud > Archives > Brain category
Brain
May 26, 2011
Bill aimed at reducing athletes' brain damage on way to governor
Natasha Helmick is just 19, but “there’s much of my childhood I don’t remember at all,” she told a Senate committee last week.
Helmick suffered five concussions — her first one in the eighth grade. She was only 14 when she was being recruited by college coaches and dreamed of playing in the Olympics, but her aspirations of playing soccer in college ended because of her repeated concussions, she said.
A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that can affect memory, alertness, speech, balance and other abilities. Its effects generally are temporary but a person who gets a second concussion while still recovering from the first one can have permanent problems and even die.
Legislation now its on way to Gov. Rick Perry seeks to prevent so-called “second impact syndrome” from occurring. It would require a doctor to certify that a Texas public school athlete who suffered a concussion has recovered before being allowed to play again. A student who suffered a concussion would be removed from play immediately.
It was authored by Rep. Walter “Four” Price, R-Amarillo, at right, and carried in the Senate by Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville.
Helmick,who is finishing her freshman year at Texas State University, testified last week before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in favor of Natasha’s Law. House Bill 2038 would also require schools to have a concussion oversight team that includes a doctor and training for coaches in concussions.
“If I knew then what I know now I would have done things differently,” Helmick said.
Former Dallas Cowboys player Robert Jones of Austin also spoke in favor of HB 2038, saying eventual passage would be a victory for parents, coaches and students. His football player son had a concussion at Austin High School last year, he said.
The committee unanimously passed the bill 6-0, and on Tuesday, the full Senate followed the House’s lead and passed it.
“It’s such an honor,” said Helmick, a graduate of Allen High School near Plano, last week.
She is studying athletic training at Texas State.
If the governor signs the bill — his office said it hasn’t reached his desk yet — it would take effect in September.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
April 21, 2009
Scientist posts to Twitter by using thoughts
It sounds so sci-fi, yet researcher Adam Wilson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated earlier this month that he could ‘tweet’ by using his thoughts.
Wouldn’t you like to do that?
The work shows that people with a variety of disabilities, ranging from paralysis to an inability to speak, might one day use such a brain-computer interface to communicate, according to a news release posted on the university’s site. His message was “using EEG to send tweet.”
An electroencephalogram (EEG) measures and records electrical activity in the brain by using electrodes attached to the scalp. Twitter is a free service that allows people to post updates about what they’re doing. It has a limit of 140 characters.
The interface the scientists in Madison are using consists of the picture of a keyboard on a computer screen.
“The way this works is that all the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually,” said Justin Williams, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and adviser to Wilson, a doctoral student. “And what your brain does is, if you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.’ And you see a momentary change in brain activity.” That means you’ve selected the ‘R,’ and it’s time to move to the next letter.
Wilson said using the interface is like texting and it goes slowly at first, and as the person improves, it goes faster. “I’ve seen people do up to eight characters per minute,” he said.
Although this technology won’t be widely available anytime soon, in-home trials are underway in the U.S. and Germany. Wilson plans to include Twitter in them.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
April 17, 2009
Get better acquainted with your brain on Tuesday
If you’re interested in learning, memory and how the brain works, you can hear more about it and even play a little at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
For the second consecutive year, the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of Texas is offering the public a free evening to hear about its research and check out some interactive booths at the Frank Erwin Center’s Lone Star Room, 1701 Red River. Free parking will be available in the large lot between the Erwin Center and University Medical Center at Brackenridge, with the guard booth at the entrance.
Neuroscientists at the center do basic research that seeks to unravel the underlying mechanisms in the brain that support learning and memory. Interactive displays at the event promise to give a more indepth look into some of the research techniques the scientists use. In one booth, people will be able to take a brief memory test that is similar to the test a researcher uses in her experiments, said Susan Cushman, who works at the center and is organizing the event.
People can register up to the day of the event at this site.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
April 3, 2009
Dripping Springs rehab center to study brain-injured patients
Mainstream medicine used to believe that if you suffered a traumatic brain injury, the chances of fixing it later were bleak. But research in recent years has proven the brain is more able to repair itself than once thought.
That’s a key pitch you’ll hear from officials in Dripping Springs touting a study at their residential treatment facility for people with traumatic brain injuries. They are gearing up for the study, which will enable researchers to peer into the brains of patients and see how they respond to therapy.
CORE Health Care will work with the CORE Foundation (a nonprofit made up of the same officers as the health care group), the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University on the study, which is being privately financed by foundations and donors, said Jim Misko, president and co-owner of CORE Health Care and vice president of the CORE Foundation.
Misko, a clinical psychologist, said the patients will receive the usual 180 days of sleep-related, aerobic-related and cognitive and physical therapy treatment. The scans will document what is happening in the brain at certain stages of treatment, Misko said.
He hopes to enroll 25 patients from the Dripping Springs facility (formerly Brown-Karhan Healthcare). Patients will have their brain scanned before treatment, in the middle of treatment and at the end. The scans will be done at UT by regular MRI, which shows the structure of the brain, and functional MRI, which shows brain function, said David Ress, technical director of UT’s Imaging Research Center.
It is hoped that the imaging will tell researchers “why some patients progress and some don’t,” Ress said.
It’s a first step, Ress said, to better understanding brain injury and treating it.
“We will see for the first time, empirical evidence of the brain’s ability to heal itself,” said Eric Makowski, CEO of CORE Health Care.
The CORE Foundation hopes to raise $2 million for the study, Misko said. So far, it has raised about $200,000 and plans to start scanning patients in about two weeks, he said.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
March 24, 2009
Hutto siblings with epilepsy representing region in D.C.
Parents of children with epilepsy know what it’s like to live with the unexpected.
Their child’s condition “really is a day-to-day thing,” said Sarah Williams of Hutto. “The weather affects them, the barometric pressure, if they don’t get enough sleep,” even the kinds of food they eat might cause seizures.
Williams knows. Her daughter, Elizabeth Espinoza, 16, was diagnosed with epilepsy after she started “blanking out,”sometimes in mid-sentence, in kindergarten. Two years ago, Elizabeth’s brother, Mark Williams, had his first seizure. Mark is now 8.
He and Elizabeth have different fathers, but through Sarah’s father’s side of the family, two of her three children inherited a genetic form of epilepsy, Sarah Williams said. Her 11-year-son, Vic, with her husband, Victor Williams, does not have epilepsy.
It is rare for siblings to have epilepsy, said Sindi Rosales, executive director of the Epilepsy Foundation Central & South Texas.
That was one reason the national foundation chose the Williams family to represent the regional chapter’s 120,000 people in 79 Central and South Texas counties with epilepsy, Rosales said. “The fact that there were two children with epilepsy in the same family was very compelling,” Rosales said.
Epilepsy is a seizure disorder brought out by a disturbance in the brain’s electrical wiring, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. It affects 3 million Americans, with about 200,000 new cases diagnosed each year, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.
The foundation is holding its seventh annual Kids Speak Up! Campaign event Sunday in Washington, D.C., as part of its annual conference. The Williams family will visit Washington for the first time, packing in as many monuments and Smithsonian museums as possible, and then taking part in conference until next Tuesday. Elizabeth and Mark will tell their House and Senate members what it’s like to live with epilepsy.
The whole family is going, and the Epilepsy Foundation will pay for Sarah, Mark and Elizabeth to make the trip.
“This affects everyone in our family,” Sarah said of epilepsy. “Every single day there is something we are dealing with.”
If Mark and Elizabeth don’t get enough sleep, they are prone to having seizures, Sarah said.
“Just this morning I had to take Mark to school late because he didn’t get enough sleep last night,” she said Monday. “He’s missed 13 days of school this year. I still get these state-mandated letters from the state saying I’m bad parent” because of his attendance.
Her children have dealt with their epilepsy differently. She has watched her son teach his classmates about his condition. Only recently has her daughter discussed it openly with her friends and others.
Having two children with epilepsy means “I never relax,” said Sarah, a project manager at Dell Inc. “I keep my phone on me 24/7. The school calls me and I jump.”
But come Friday, the entire family will be focused on having fun. “We’re really excited,” Sarah said.
(From left are: Sarah Williams, Elizabeth Espinoza, Mark Williams, Victor Williams and son, Vic, with the family dog, Marnier)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
March 20, 2009
Mentally, you peak in your 20s, research says
I thought I was at my peak mentally when I was a Washington correspondent in my 30s grappling daily with inscrutable policy, arcane legislative rules and political agendas, often hidden, always nuanced. But maybe I already was declining.
Intriguing new research from the University of Virginia says cognitive declines might actually start when we are approaching our late 20s. A paper published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging says “some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s,” according to the abstract.
A news release on the paper (I didn’t pay the $31.50 for the study) says some abilities, such as remembering unrelated bits of information and detecting relationships, “peak at about the age of 22, and then begin a slow decline starting around age 27.”
Timothy Salthouse, a University of Virginia psychology professor, and his team studied 2,000 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 60 over seven years. In addition to the cognitive drop-off, the team also found that average memory declines were detected by about age 37. Now that explains a lot of things.
On the upside, they found that vocabulary improvements and expanded general knowledge increase at least until the age of 60, the news release says.
And wisdom? I call that priceless.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
November 19, 2008
Pot helps the memory? Ohio State researchers say there's evidence
How many Baby Boomers have blamed pot smoking for their forgetful middle-aged memories?
As a Boomer myself, I was surprised to read this today: Researchers at Ohio State University say they are accumulating mounting evidence that certain properties in a legal drug that mimics marijuana can be good for the aging brain and might prevent Alzheimer’s disease. They contend that properties like those in tetrahydrocannabinol — or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana — can reduce inflammation in the brain and might even stimulate the production of new brain cells.
It is believed that chronic inflammation in the brain contributes to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a news release about the research on EureakAlert, a resource for journalists.
“Could people smoke marijuana to prevent Alzheimer’s disease if the disease is in their family?” asked lead researcher Gary Wenk, professor of psychology at Ohio State. “We’re not saying that, but it might actually work. What we are saying is it appears that a safe, legal substance that mimics those important properties of marijuana can work on receptors in the brain to prevent memory impairments in aging. So that’s really hopeful.”
So far, his team has shown that a man-made THC-like drug can improve memory in rats. But that’s not the same thing as proving it works in humans, which will take more time and more research.
And here’s another caution: The research has not been published. It merely is being described in a poster presentation today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C. But that’s a first step, and it’s interesting.
Permalink | Comments (63) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
September 9, 2008
Vitamin B12 may protect brain from shrinking
Here’s an argument for eating well as you age — and for better food in nursing homes:
Research published today in the journal Neurology says that foods rich in vitamin B12 such as meat, fish and milk appear to protect the brain from shrinking as people age.
The study, which examined brain scans, memory tests and blood levels of 107 people ages 61 to 87, found that those with higher B12 levels were six times more likely to avoid brain shrinkage than people with lower levels of B12, according to a news release about the study. None in the study had a B12 deficiency.
“Many factors that affect brain health are thought to be out of our control, but this study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily adjust to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory,” said study author Anna Vogiatzoglou with the University of Oxford in England.
The researchers did not study whether taking Vitamin B12 supplements would make the same difference on memory. That’s fertile ground for future study.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Brain
