DEPRESSION CURES VIA ELECTRICAL IMPLANTS IN BRAIN

The anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex (red) and frontal gyrus (orange) areas of the brain, which eTNS is said to activate (Image: NeuroSigma)

The World Health Organization has projected that by 2020, major depression will be the second-most significant cause for disability in the world, after heart disease. Along with psychotherapy, the disorder is usually treated using antidepressant drugs. There is often a frustrating trial-and-error period involved in finding the right drug for the right person, however, while side effects can include obesity, sexual dysfunction, and fatigue … to name a few. Los Angeles-based company NeuroSigma is now looking into an alternative drug-free therapy, that could ultimately incorporate electrodes implanted under the patient’s skin.

In an eight-week clinical trial conducted last June, researchers at UCLA externally stimulated the cranial trigeminal nerve of patients who suffered from depression. This was accomplished by attaching two electrodes to the skin of each subject’s forehead, which were in turn attached to a mobile phone-sized stimulating device. The external Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (eTNS) process reportedly resulted in a 70 percent reduction in symptom severity during the trial, and a subsequent 80 percent remission rate, with none of the side effects associated with antidepressants.

The technology is licensed exclusively to NeuroSigma.

Last month, findings were presented on four more subjects from those trials, including functional neuroimaging PET data. It was determined that even brief exposure to eTNS increased blood flow to regions of the brain associated with depression and mood regulation. “These findings of a potential mechanism of action support our original hypothesis that electrical stimulation of the trigeminal nerves, located in facial skin tissue, can provide a very safe and effective means to send signals to key structures deep in the brain, thus providing a high-bandwidth pathway to the brain without current penetrating directly through the skull” said UCLA‘s Dr. Ian Cook.

A twenty-subject, double-blind second phase of the trials began this February, and should wrap up late this year.

NeuroSigma is meanwhile continuing development of eTNS, while also working on a version of the system that would utilize implantable subcutaneous electrodes. Known as sTNS, patients who responded well to eTNS could choose to switch over to it. The technology could also possibly be used to treat epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Using a newly developed imaging technique, researchers in the U.K. have for the first time observed what happens to the brain as it loses consciousness. The method known as “functional electrical impedance tomography by evoked response” (fEITER) uses a 32 electrode array to scan the brain at a rate of 100 times a second and by applying this as an anaesthetic drug takes effect, researchers are able to build a real-time 3-D video that will aid in better understanding of how the brain functions and the nature of consciousness.

The multidisciplinary team from the University of Manchester are the first to apply electrical impedance tomography (EIT) to anaesthesia.

So far the evidence supports the theory put forward by Oxford University’s Professor Susan Greenfield that consciousness is not an ON/OFF state but more like a dimmer switch.

“Our findings suggest that unconsciousness may be the increase of inhibitory assemblies across the brain’s cortex,” said Brian Pollard, Professor of Anaesthesia at The University of Manchester (UK). “These findings lend support to Greenfield’s hypothesis of neural assemblies forming consciousness.

“We have looked at 20 healthy volunteers and are now looking at 20 anaesthetized patients scheduled for surgery. We are able to see 3-D images of the brain’s conductivity change, and those where the patient is becoming anaesthetized are most interesting.”

“We have been able to see a real time loss of consciousness in anatomically distinct regions of the brain for the first time. We are currently working on trying to interpret the changes that we have observed. We still do not know exactly what happens within the brain as unconsciousness occurs, but this is another step in the direction of understanding the brain and its functions.”

EIT also holds promise in diagnosing changes to the brain that occur as a result of head injury, stroke and dementia.

“If its power can be harnessed, then it has the potential to make a huge impact on many areas of imaging in medicine,” said Pollard.

The findings are were presented earlier this month at the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam.

Source: University of Manchester.

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HERE’S HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES

It’s absolutely heartbreaking. All over the world, nursing homes are filled with frail, feeble residents suffering from dementia. In many cases, these folks are so far gone they don’t even recognize their own children.

But I’m going to let you in on a dark, dirty secret: Many of these patients do not have dementia at all.

Their memory loss, confusion, and delirium are caused by prescription drugs!

And so are many of their other problems.

This is not just speculation on my part. It’s fully documented in the medical journals. In fact, it’s so common that there are even medical terms for it. Like “polypharmacy,” which means giving a patient too many different drugs. And “iatrogenic illness,” which means any illness caused by doctors.

According to the medical journals, polypharmacy and iatrogenic illness are rampant throughout the globe.

• One study determined that one of the major causes of falls in nursing homes is the side effects caused by medications.
• Another study found that 97% of nursing home patients take at least one drug, with 17% taking 5 or more!
• Yet another study concluded that many drugs can cause Parkinson’s-like symptoms and concluded that “drug-induced parkinsonism is frequent.”
• And still another study listed 22 different categories of drugs that can cause symptoms that mimic Alzheimer’s… plus 14 differentover-the-counter drugs that can cause those symptoms!

Here’s a typical scenario. A healthy person goes to the doctor for a checkup and is told his cholesterol or blood pressure is high. So he starts taking medication, which causes side effects. This leads his doctor to give him a second drug to treat those side effects. But, of course, that second drug causes new side effects. So the doctor prescribes a third drug to treat the side effects of the second one!

Before you know it, the person’s health is spiraling downward and  soon needs people to take care of him. And everyone just chalks it up to “old age.”

But you can fight back against this system of medicine prescriptions becoming rampant.  First of all, make sure you always try natural remedies first. Pharmaceuticals should be a last resort, not a first option. Secondly, if you have a loved one in a nursing home, talk to a naturally minded physician about possibly weaning them off the drugs. This single step may make a huge difference to their health and well-being.

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Dec 8 – Russian chess grandmaster Anatoly Karpov has pit his skills against French rival Joel Lautier as part of a scientific experiment to see if intellectual work can help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. Stuart McDill reports.

View video here

An Italian doctor has been getting dramatic results with a new type of treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, which affects up to 2.5 million people worldwide. In an initial study, Dr. Paolo Zamboni took 65 patients with relapsing-remitting MS, performed a simple operation to unblock restricted bloodflow out of the brain – and two years after the surgery, 73% of the patients had no symptoms. Dr. Zamboni’s thinking could turn the current understanding of MS on its head, and offer many sufferers a complete cure.

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, has long been regarded as a life sentence of debilitating nerve degeneration. More common in females, the disease affects an estimated 2.5 million people around the world, causing physical and mental disabilities that can gradually destroy a patient’s quality of life.

It’s generally accepted that there’s no cure for MS, only treatments that mitigate the symptoms – but a new way of looking at the disease has opened the door to a simple treatment that is causing radical improvements in a small sample of sufferers.

Italian Dr. Paolo Zamboni has put forward the idea that many types of MS are actually caused by a blockage of the pathways that remove excess iron from the brain – and by simply clearing out a couple of major veins to reopen the blood flow, the root cause of the disease can be eliminated.

Dr. Zamboni’s revelations came as part of a very personal mission – to cure his wife as she began a downward spiral after diagnosis. Reading everything he could on the subject, Dr. Zamboni found a number of century-old sources citing excess iron as a possible cause of MS. It happened to dovetail with some research he had been doing previously on how a buildup of iron can damage blood vessels in the legs – could it be that a buildup of iron was somehow damaging blood vessels in the brain?

He immediately took to the ultrasound machine to see if the idea had any merit – and made a staggering discovery. More than 90% of people with MS have some sort of malformation or blockage in the veins that drain blood from the brain. Including, as it turned out, his wife.

He formed a hypothesis on how this could lead to MS: iron builds up in the brain, blocking and damaging these crucial blood vessels. As the vessels rupture, they allow both the iron itself, and immune cells from the bloodstream, to cross the blood-brain barrier into the cerebro-spinal fluid. Once the immune cells have direct access to the immune system, they begin to attack the myelin sheathing of the cerebral nerves – Multiple Sclerosis develops.

He named the problem Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency, or CCSVI.

Zamboni immediately scheduled his wife for a simple operation to unblock the veins – a catheter was threaded up through blood vessels in the groin area, all the way up to the effected area, and then a small balloon was inflated to clear out the blockage. It’s a standard and relatively risk-free operation – and the results were immediate. In the three years since the surgery, Dr. Zamboni’s wife has not had an attack.

Widening out his study, Dr. Zamboni then tried the same operation on a group of 65 MS-sufferers, identifying blood drainage blockages in the brain and unblocking them – and more than 73% of the patients are completely free of the symptoms of MS, two years after the operation.

In some cases, a balloon is not enough to fully open the vein channel, which collapses either as soon as the balloon is removed, or sometime later. In these cases, a metal stent can easily be used, which remains in place holding the vein open permanently.

Dr. Zamboni’s lucky find is yet to be accepted by the medical community, which is traditionally slow to accept revolutionary ideas. Still, most agree that while further study needs to be undertaken before this is looked upon as a cure for MS, the results thus far have been very positive.

Naturally, support groups for MS sufferers are buzzing with the news that a simple operation could free patients from what they have always been told would be a lifelong affliction, and further studies are being undertaken by researchers around the world hoping to confirm the link between CCSVI and MS, and open the door for the treatment to become available for sufferers worldwide.

It’s certainly a very exciting find for MS sufferers, as it represents a possible complete cure, as opposed to an ongoing treatment of symptoms. We wish Dr. Zamboni and the various teams looking further into this issue the best of luck.

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Alzheimer’s disease is a common health issue during the age of senility. It is the most familiar and common form of dementia and is considered to be an incurable and terminal degenerative disease. Alzheimer’s disease usually starts at 65 but it may happen at an earlier age. Treatment for Alzheimer’s disease is only limited to care-giving, psychosocial, medical and environmental intervention. Despite the disease’s increasing popularity in people in old age, different studies have found different ways of reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Theories on Alzheimer’s Disease

Different conflicting theories argue on the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease. The oldest theory called the cholinergic hypothesis suggests that the disease is caused by the weakened synthesis of acetylcholine in the brain, a neurotransmitter responsible for promoting and maintaining a healthy communication with the sections of the brain. But due to the lack of efficacy exhibited by medications to improve the synthesis of acetylcholine, the theory has not gained and maintained support form the medical schools.

Another theory suggests that Alzheimer’s disease is implied by a specific disorder in the human genome. The well-established observation is that people who have this specific genetic abnormality develop the disease as early as the age of 40.  This gives the theory a stronger standpoint than its older opponent. Medical experts strongly suggest that the development of Alzheimer’s disease can be brought about by a certain genetic trait. But they also add that the person’s overall lifestyle greatly influence its onset. In a study conducted in order to examine the risk and development of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers found that walking can slow down the progression of the disease.

Though there hasn’t been any concrete evidence found in order to support suggested methods to avoid or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, medical experts are consistent on the idea that diet and sufficient mental and physical exercise can strongly influence the progression of the disease. The simple habit of walking was found by a group of researchers from Pennsylvania to slow down cognitive decline in a group of adults with mild conditions of cognitive impairment.

Walking against Alzheimer’s Disease

A study presented at the annual conference of the Radiological Society of North America suggested that walking can slow down cognitive decline in adults experiencing mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease and even in adults with no signs of cognitive impairment. Lead researcher from the University of Pittsburgh Department Of Radiology, Cyrus Raji, said that they had found that walking for a minimum of five miles a week helps protect the brain from damage, especially in areas responsible for learning and memory, for ten years. They also found that it slows down the decline of memory loss for over years.

In the data provided by the National Institute of Aging, around 2 to 5 million Americans suffer from the disease and the numbers are expected to increase in the next years. The fact that Alzheimer’s disease is irreversible and that no cure has been found to make the brain recover from the damage makes it one of the biggest health issues in the world. Minor cognitive impairment (MCI) is a condition wherein in a person experiences serious age-related memory loss but not as grave as that of Alzheimer’s disease. But around 50 percent of MCI cases continue to develop into a full blown Alzheimer’s disease. Raji said that the best way of coping with the problem, since treatment is not yet available, is to find ways to alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, slow down its progression and help improve the patient’s quality of life.

Study Details

The study will last for 20 years and will examine the relationship between brain health and physical activity. The researchers gathered a group of 127 adults with cognitive impairment and 299 healthy adults. The group with cognitive impairment consists of 44 people with Alzheimer’s disease and 83 with mild cognitive impairment. They monitored how frequent and far the study participants walked in a period of seven days and after 10 years, they underwent MRI examinations to determine and identify the changes in their brain. Researchers looked closely at brain volume since it is directly related to the brain’s health condition; higher brain volume means healthier brain while a decline could mean that brain cells are dying. They were also asked to take an examination to test their cognitive skills for 5 years. The results of the cognitive exams directly corresponded with the MRI results with adjustments made to discharge the influence of variables like education, gender, head size and body fat composition.

The study concluded that increased physical activities results to greater brain volume. Study participants with mild cognitive impairment had to walk at least 5 miles in a weak in order to offset the cognitive decline while healthy participants needed a minimum of six miles per week to reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment. Raji added that walking is not a cure against Alzheimer’s disease but refers to the activity as an effective means of reducing memory loss associated with ageing and lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The Numerous Health Benefits of Walking

We walk on a daily basis. But despite the inevitability of the need for walking, some people are still not getting enough of the activity. The availability of new technologies that bypasses the necessities for walking like Segways, lifts and other devices that moves people to short distances wherein walking was previously required deprives people of its various health benefits.

Walking is the most natural form of physical activity. The movement of the legs and hands requires enough exertion to promote healthier breathing and blood circulation. More oxygen gets circulated in the blood and to the brain. This helps the body maintain health cognitive and physical function. Walking has also been found to boost the immune system, manage weight, prevent and control disease, prevent osteoporosis and a lot more.

A study showed that it is easier to exercise when it is part of our daily lives. Walking to nearby locations is an effective means of getting enough exercise without getting stressed too much about maintaining the activity. Going to the gym or participating in a certain physical activity may be challenging for some people since these may require too much self-discipline.

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BERKELEY, Calif. (UPI) — Jet lag might make you more than just groggy and dazed, U.S. researchers say — it might even make you stupid.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, said hamsters suffering extreme, chronic jet lag had about half the normal rate of new neuron birth in one part of the brain and showed deficits in learning and memory, ScienceNews.org reported Tuesday.

The scientists subjected hamsters to simulated jet lag by advancing their day and night schedule by 6 hours every three days for nearly a month, “like a flight from New York to Paris every three days,” study coauthor Erin Gibson said.

Jet lag decreases the numbers of new neurons being created in the hippocampus by about 50 percent, the team found, as mental function suffered.

Even after 28 days of a back-to-normal schedule, the formerly jet-lagged hamsters still showed learning and memory problems, Gibson said.

The mismatch between the internal body clock and the external environment “is having a long-term effect on learning and memory,” Gibson said.

While it’s not certain exactly how these cognitive problems are induced by jet lag, the sleep hormone melatonin, stress and increased cell death are all possible culprits that need to be explored, she said.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

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Whenever we get too busy or stressed, we all tend to make poor food choices that will actually increase stress and cause other problems. To get the most of your healthy eating and avoid stress, follow these simple tips. Always eat breakfast, even though you may think you aren’t hungry, you need to eat something. Skipping breakfast makes it harder to maintain the proper blood and sugar levels during the day, so you should always eat something. Keeping some protein rich snacks in your car, office, or pocket book will help you avoid blood sugar level dips, the accompanying mood swings, and the fatigue. Trail mix, granola bars, and energy bars all have the nutrients you need. If you like to munch when you’re stressed out, you can replace chips or other non healthy foods with carrot sticks, celery sticks, or even sunflower seeds.

Although a lot of people prefer to eat fast food for lunch, you can save a lot of money and actually eat healthier if you take a few minutes and pack a lunch at home. Even if you only do this a few times a week, you’ll see a much better improvement over eating out. As important as it is to get the bad food out of your house, it’s even more important to get the good food in! The best way to do this is to plan a menu of healthy meals at snacks at the beginning of the week, list the ingedients you need, then go shop for it. This way, you’ll know what you want when you need it and you won’t have to stress over what to eat. *

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Could Improve Gene Therapy

for Brain Cancer

Science (Aug. 11, 2010) — An ingredient in the venom of the “deathstalker” scorpion could help gene therapy become an effective treatment for brain cancer, scientists are reporting. The substance allows therapeutic genes — genes that treat disease — to reach more brain cancer cells than current approaches, according to the study in ACS Nano.

Miqin Zhang and colleagues note that gene therapy — the delivery of therapeutic genes into diseased cells — shows promise for fighting glioma, the most common and most serious form of brain cancer. But difficulties in getting genes to enter cancer cells and concerns over the safety and potential side effects of substances used to transport these genes have kept the approach from helping patients.

The scientists describe a new approach that could solve these problems. Key ingredients of their gene-delivery system are chlorotoxin, the substance in deathstalker scorpion venom that can slow the spread of brain cancer, and nanoparticles of iron oxide. Each nanoparticle is about 1/50,000th the width of a human hair. In tests on lab mice, the scientists demonstrated that their venom-based nanoparticles can induce nearly twice the amount of gene expression in brain cancer cells as nanoparticles that do not contain the venom ingredient. “These results indicate that this targeted gene delivery system may potentially improve treatment outcome of gene therapy for glioma and other deadly cancers,” the article notes.

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JENA, Germany (UPI) — Amputees suffering from “phantom pain” may get relief from a modified prosthetic that can convince the brain the body part still exists, researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Jena in Germany say phantom pain often lasts for years, and sometimes for a lifetime, often putting amputees at risk of mediation addiction from high dosages of painkillers, a university release said Friday.

Researchers say they’ve produced a modified prosthetic hand than can reduce phantom pain following amputation by using a stimulation unit in the hand’s cuff connected to the remaining part of the upper arm.

Modern prosthetic hands have pressure sensors meant to regulate the strength of grip of the artificial hand depending on what the wearer is trying to pick up, such as a raw egg or a hammer.

The stimulation unit in the modified hand takes feedback from the sensors and “talks” to the wearer’s brain, Dr. Gunther Hofmann of the Jena Department for Trauma, Hand and Reconstructive Surgery says.

“Our system is now able to transmit this sensory information from the hand to the upper arm,” Hofmann says.

Brain structures responsible for processing sensory information coming from the lost body part are “out of work” following an amputation and try to reorganize themselves, often leading to sensations of pain in a “phantom” hand, the Jena researchers say. By giving the appropriate brain structure sensory input from the “hand” it is meant to control, the reorganization can be prevented or reversed, thus eliminated phantom pain, they say.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

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