July 29, 2005, 7:30 am

What is Brain Plasticity?

Brain plasticity is one of the hottest topics in neuroscience research. The brain’s regenerative and flexible capacities are only now being observed and understood, but the field is expected to yield monumental findings in the future. Neuroscience consultant Kenneth A. Wesson explains:

“Cortical plasticity refers to the brain ability to continue exercising its flexible nature by allowing different areas of the brain to change as a result of experiences it gets in the outside environment. The brain is sturdy, delicate and flexible. A child’s early interactions directly impact the ways in which the brain gets physically connected or how it gets “wired-up” initially.”

Click here to read “What is Brain Plasticity?”

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July 28, 2005, 8:09 am

SIS: Second Impact Syndrome

Athletes are particularly prone to Second Impact Syndrome, a brain injury that occurs as a result from a second concussion when the first one has not had enought time to heal. One of the dangers of SIS is the subtlety of the injury:

“At the onset of SIS the athlete is usually stunned, but does not lose consciousness and often completes the play. In the next 15 seconds to several minutes, however, the athlete’s brain is severely compromised by a chain reaction. The impact may cause blood vessels to tear, a blood clot forms, and the flow of blood is greatly reduced causing the brain to swell. This creates pressure on the brain stem, which controls breathing. Shortly thereafter, respiratory failure begins, and the athlete collapses with rapidly dilating pupils and loss of eye movement.”

Read Athletes at Risk: Second Impact Syndrome in Sports

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July 27, 2005, 7:28 am

Drug Being Tested for TBI

New Mexico Business Weekly is reporting that researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are investigating a drug for potential treatment in some TBI cases. Neurostat, originally developed for treatment of Lou Gherig’s disease (ALS), may help some TBI survivors:

“[Vickers] says much of the nerve damage caused by brain injuries comes after the initial injury. Mass BiolAB’s NeuroSTAT drug works by protecting the mitochondria within a nerve cell and stopping it from slowly dying after the initial injury.”

Click here to read “Drug Being Tested for Brain Injury Applications”

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, 7:20 am

Meth Users Show Similarity to Brain Injury Patients

Mental health professionals have long speculated about the various types of damage caused by meth addiction, and now research is catching up. This brief news articles from Yahoo states:

“The belief that neurologic symptoms of methamphetamine use are due to structural damage to the brain is supported by current neuro-imaging research. Recent publications in the America Journal of Psychiatry have documented losses of dopamine transporters in detoxified methamphetamine users that mimic the reductions seen from Parkinson’s disease, both of which correlate with decreased performance on simple motor and learning tasks.”

Click here to read “Meth Users Show Similarity to Brain Injury Patients”

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July 26, 2005, 1:02 pm

11 Steps to a Better Brain

Leave it to the bright minds at newscientist.com to come up with a list of clever tips and techniques for keeping your brain strong and healthy. Here’s a quick sample:

“Until recently, a person’s IQ - a measure of all kinds of mental problem-solving abilities, including spatial skills, memory and verbal reasoning - was thought to be a fixed commodity largely determined by genetics. But recent hints suggest that a very basic brain function called working memory might underlie our general intelligence, opening up the intriguing possibility that if you improve your working memory, you could boost your IQ too.”

Click here to read 11 steps to a Better Brain

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, 12:53 pm

Unusual Neurological Syndromes

From the Resource Page for NLP and Neurology comes a fascinating glimps into the sometimes bizarre world of neurological syndromes. Consider this description of Fergoli’s Syndrome:

“This is an extraordinary experience where the person misidentifies another person as someone who clearly he is not. Indeed, he may begin to see the same person everywhere he looks, something demonstrated in that marvelous film, “Being John Malchovick”. Typically, this state is said to be secondary to states such as the schizophrenias but can occur in isolation to other disorders. Ramachadran suggests this state results from having an excess of connections between the facial recognition centers and the amygdala (the opposite of Capgras’ syndrome).”

Click here to read about Unusual Syndromes

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