By JOHNS HOPKINS 07/04/2012 “There is growing interest in applying responsive, or closed-loop, therapy for treatment of epileptic seizures,” expert says. Epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide, but in a third of these cases, medication cannot keep seizures from occurring. One solution is to shoot a short pulse of electricity to the brain to stamp

Most epilepsy patients can lead normal lives’ By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH 27/03/2012 Experts say follow-up of child or adult patients with epilepsy can give 70% of them a normal life. Proper treatment and follow-up of child or adult patients with epilepsy can give 70 percent of them a normal life, according to experts on the disease.

Finding Clues in the Fearful Brain By JOSEPH LEDOUX Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways. Tags: animal testing, Anxiety, Brain, fear A few weeks ago I wrote in this series about the difference between fear and anxiety. In simple terms, I described fear as a response to an immediately present stimulus

Both Early Alcohol Use and Early Intoxication Can Herald Trouble for College Students ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2012) — An early age at first drink (AFD) has been linked to later alcohol-related problems, which is one of the reasons behind the legal drinking age of 21 in the U.S. It is unclear, however, if increased risk

Study Says Brain Trauma Can Mimic Lou Gehrig’s Disease By ALAN SCHWARZ In the 71 years since the Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig declared himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,despite dying from a disease that would soon bear his name, he has stood as America’s leading icon of athletic valor struck down

Popular Drugs May Help Only Severe Depression By BENEDICT CAREY Some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients, according to a new analysis released Tuesday. The findings could help settle a longstanding debate about antidepressants. While the study does not imply

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH 19/01/2014 One out of five women and one out of six men will have a stroke sometime in their lives, according to survey. Fifteen thousand men and women in Israel have a stroke in an average year, and most of them suffer a disability that requires rehabilitation, according to the Israeli National

Rehovot scientists bring hope of an eventual treatment for cruel, incurable form of Gaucher’s disease By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH 20/01/2014 Disease is a genetic disorder that especially affects Jews of Ashkenazi origin. Science researchers have discovered a new “cellular pathway” in type-2 Gaucher disease, a genetic disorder that especially affects Jews of Ashkenazi origin. They believe

The man complained of memory problems but seemed perfectly normal. No specialist he visited detected any decline. “He insisted that things were changing, but he aced all of our tests,” said Rebecca Amariglio, a neuropsychologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. But about seven years later, he began showing symptoms of dementia. Dr. Amariglio

Mercury in fish. Consumption advice is for non-pregnant adults. Photo by: Photo credit: Wikipedia A “sentinel” population in the vastness of the Indian Ocean has long attracted scientific interest because of how much dietary methylmercury its members consume. The thing is, though, that as much as scientists have looked, they have yet to find any

Most autism research involves boys and men Autism affects male and female brains differently, a study has suggested. UK experts studied brain scans of 120 men and women, with half of those studied having autism. The differences found in the research, published in journal Brain, show more work is needed to understand how autism affects

Dyslexia is a common learning disorder that affects around 1 in 10 people in the U.S., where it is typically diagnosed around second grade but sometimes goes undiagnosed and unmanaged well into adulthood. And though it is technically a learning disorder, it actually occurs in people with normal vision and intelligence, according to the Mayo