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Causes of Peduncular Hallucinosis

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:33:39 +0000

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital considered the neuroanatomy of peduncular hallucinosis, which usually involves very colorful and elaborate visions of people, animals and scenery.

Classically, the symptoms are caused by damage to the midbrain, pons or thalamus. The problem is that in actuality, lesions such as strokes don't usually just hit one little area, but involve more than one region.

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Another Alzheimer's Disease Trial Fails

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:36:16 +0000

I confess that I had high hopes for trials of IVIG in the treatment of Alzheimer's. Preliminary evidence suggested that the medication could be very beneficial. Unfortunately, the results from the large clinical trial have shown no significant benefit between those who were taking the drug and those who were not. There were some significant findings in a group of patients who were positive for the gene ApoE4, but whether these results will be clinically meaningful remains to be seen.

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Dancing Around Parkinson's Disease

Sun, 12 May 2013 03:06:50 +0000

Postural instability is a cardinal symptom of Parkinson's disease, and stops many from even walking. Dancing, on the other hand, may be more helpful.

Ann McKee, a fourth year medical student at Emory University, presented results at the 2013 American Academy of Neurology's Annual conference that suggests that 30 hours of tango lessons helped Parkinson's patients with mobility and balance.

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New Treatment for Tics?

Tue, 07 May 2013 03:08:10 +0000

A group has shown that an investigational drug called ecopipam relieved tics in adult patients after just eight weeks. The drug works on dopamine receptors, thereby addressing the neurological network theorized to underlie the symptoms of Tourette's syndrome.

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Is this Dizzy Spell Really a Panic Attack?

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:00:03 +0000

There are many reasons to feel dizzy, and anxiety is one of the most common. Panic attack involves sudden and recurrent episodes of at least four of the following symptoms:

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Epilepsy in Children: Terminology

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:21:17 +0000

I've written a bit already about epilepsy in children under the age of two. This month, I've written more on epilepsy in children older than two years. This kind of age division is artificial, and some syndromes actually overlap. Still, dividing by age like this does help to make sense of the bewildering number of seizures syndromes out there, of which I'm only discussing some of the most common or best known.

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What Causes Hallucinations in Dementia?

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:00:37 +0000

There are many neurological causes of hallucination, but few if any are well understood. Researchers at the 2013 American Academy of Neurology Annual Conference addressed the question of how the type and location of abnormal proteins in a dementia affected the risk of hallucinations. Formed visual hallucinations can accompany Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease. Some studies suggest this is related to increased Lewy body pathology, which is classically associated with Parkinson's or Lewy Body Dementia. Sometimes, though, the misfolded proteins called Lewy bodies exist in brains of people with Alzheimer's as well, though Alzheimer's is usually associated with microscopic findings called amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles...

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How Do You Measure Pain?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:59:48 +0000

Alleviating pain is one of the greatest missions of doctors everywhere. The mission is frustrating, though, because pain is very hard to measure.

At this time, a physician has to rely entirely on what the patient says about the severity of their pain in order to treat it. Unfortunately, as the television physician Dr. Gregory House was famous for saying, "People lie." House himself was an example of someone who was addicted to painkillers. Doctors are under enormous pressure to avoid contributing to the rampant opiate abuse epidemic in the United States, but at the same time want to help suffering patients.

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Genetics of Speech and Language

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:58:30 +0000

The gap between something as small as DNA molecules and something as complex as speech and language seems so large at first glimpse as to be unbridgeable. The gap can be filled, but it is not straightforward.

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Human Neurogenesis

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:57:21 +0000

It used to be believed that the brain was done producing new cells by the time we reached adulthood. Now we've learned something more exciting-- our brain produces new neurons all the time. True, it only does so in certain areas, and doesn't do so very quickly, but nevertheless, these new cells have important functions in how we learn and develop.

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