Health blog on the condition of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had a seizure and was just diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. WUSTL neurosurgery chairman Ralph Dacey is one of the experts commenting.

References:

1. May 20, 2008 — Understanding Sen. Kennedy's Brain Tumor in the The Wall Street Journal

A U.S. boy has become the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game using only the signals from his brain to make movements.
WUSTL researchers led by neurological surgery professor Eric Leuthardt and biomedical engineering professor Daniel Moran say the boy's achievement might lead to creation of biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, enabling the movement of a prosthesis by just thinking about it.

References:

1. Oct. 11, 2006 — Teenager moves video icons by imagination in the United Press International

and 2 others.

Mechanical engineers at WUSTL along with collaborators, have devised a technique using MRI technology that shows how the human brain reacts when the skull accelerates. The research shows that as the skull accelerates, the numerous vessels, membranes and nerves at the base of the brain, try to pull away, from the spine leading to a significant deformation in the front of the brain. Philip Bayly, Ph.D., Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor in Engineering, discussed the group's findings Nov. 10, 2005, at the annual meeting of the National Neurotrauma Society in Washington, DC.

References:

1. Dec. 15, 2005 — New Technique Puts Brain-Imaging Research On Its Head in the Space Daily

Scientists are working on early steps toward a complex but straightforward technological goal: to use electrical signals from the brain as instructions to computers and other machines, allowing paralyzed people to communicate, move around and control their environment literally without moving a muscle. When surgeons at Washington University in St. Louis, in cooperation with Wolpaw, placed tiny electrodes on the surface of the brains of four people recently, they achieved accuracies of 74 percent to 100 percent in an electronic game with just three to 24 minutes of training.

References:

1. May 3, 2005 — Computers obey brain signals from paralyzed people ... and our reporter, too in the Associated Press

Using thought alone and with electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, four volunteers were able to control a simple video game, U.S. researchers report. Simply by thinking the word "move," the volunteers played the game.
"We are using pure imagination. These people are not moving their limbs," said Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon at the School of Medicine who worked on the study. Writing in the Journal of Neural Engineering, Leuthardt and Daniel Moran, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Medicine, said the patients learned in minutes how to control a computer cursor.

References:

1. June 16, 2004 — Patients play by power of thought in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

and 20 others.

A new study tested an amyloid-imaging positron emission tomography (PET) with a new tracer. Amyloid is the protein that is deposited in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Though the study was small, the researchers found a "robust" difference in the amount of amyloid present in the brains of the Alzheimer's patients when compared to the healthy control patients. John Morris, the Friedman Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine, said the scanning study has "enormous implications." The scans could be used to track the performance of drugs, vaccines and other therapies that break down amyloid or prevent it from forming, Morris said. The technology could also help diagnose Alzheimer's in living people and possibly predict who's likely to get the disease based on their brain chemistry. "Those are all big ifs, but now we have the tool with these imaging molecules," he said.

References:

1. Jan. 22, 2004 — Amyloid imaging PET scan may help diagnose, prevent Alzheimer's in the The Wall Street Journal

and 8 others.

Two proteins appear to work together in mice to prevent the formation of the brain plaques that are characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at the School of Medicine report that the proteins clusterin and apolipoprotein E seem to orchestrate the removal of potentially hazardous molecules from the brain. "This is one of the first demonstrations in living animals that shows these proteins affect amyloid clearance," said David Holtzman, the Paul Hagemann Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine. "Our findings suggest it is worthwhile to explore the use of drugs or therapies to alter or perhaps increase the expression of these proteins as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease."

References:

1. Jan. 24, 2004 — Two proteins may help prevent Alzheimer’s brain plaques in the Innovations-Report (Germany)

and 31 others.