Continued from Part 3. After the surgery we were hopeful, that with a few limitations on his left side, my nephew would have a fairly normal life. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The faulty electrical impulses that had caused his seizures had migrated to the left lobe and a few days after surgery the seizures returned. It was true that they were milder than they had been before; he no longer stopped breathing when he had them, so some good had definitely come out of his surgery experience. They weren’t gone, however, so he spent another month in the hospital as the doctors tried a staggering amount of drug cocktails on him trying to figure out the best combination for controlling his seizures. None of them worked perfectly, though, so even today at the age of seven, he still has multiple seizures a day. … [visit site to read more]

Continued from Part 2. After we had been transferred to the large university hospital, the doctors decided to delve more deeply into the specifics of my nephew’s brain malformation. The MRIs had told us some things, but not everything, so they scheduled him for a Positron Emission Tomograph, commonly known as a PET-scan. A PET-scan uses radioactivity coupled with a biologically-active molecule and after injection, the biological molecule congregates in the area of interest, in our case, my nephew’s brain. The radioactivity attached to the biological molecule then starts letting its extra neutrons go in a process called decay. This decay, through a very complicated process, is read by the PET scanner and brain activity can be assessed. What this very comprehensive scan told the doctors and subsequently us was that the right side of my nephew’s brain couldn’t send electrical signals properly and this aberrant electrical activity was causing the seizures. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the activity was to take out whatever in the right hemisphere was giving the wonky signals, so my nephew, at the age of four months, was scheduled for brain surgery. … [visit site to read more]

Continued from Part 1. After we had arrived at the new hospital and my nephew had been placed into the Pediatric ICU (PICU), the doctors started running more tests, and in conjunction with what the ER doctor had found out, my nephew was diagnosed with a seizure disorder or, as it is more commonly known, epilepsy. Epilepsy is defined as a “brain disorder characterized predominantly by recurrent and unpredictable interruptions of normal brain function” and in most cases, this interruption is caused by either an over-excitation or under-excitation of the neurons in the brain. After electroencephalography (EEG) was performed and analyzed, this aberrant electrical brain activity was what appeared to be happening to my nephew, so the doctors began to prescribe medications that are typically given to children with seizure disorders. The problem with my nephew, however, was that from the MRI that had been performed on him at this point, it was evident that there was significant brain malformation in his right hemisphere, and these medications would only be treating the symptoms and not the cause. … [visit site to read more]

As a person who believes in full disclosure, I feel that I should say from the outset that I am not a neurologist. I am a microbiologist, and generally speaking, even though I am a science-type of person, I was never very interested in neurology. All that changed, however, when my nephew was born. Well, it didn’t happen exactly the moment he was born; it took a while for us to learn how unique he really was. I guess it is probably best if I start at the beginning. … [visit site to read more]

“The dramatic rise in prescriptions [of psychotropics for children and young adults] has alarmed several commentators,” according to Lakhan and Hagger-Johnson. In their article, they trace this problem to five erroneous myths that influence prescribing:

1) Children are little adults. During adolescence, the brain changes rapidly. As a result, therapeutic benefits, potential adverse occurrences, and drug interactions can vary with age. Adolescents, in particular, have unique characteristics meaning inconsistent results and effects. For example, SSRIs are being prescribed less for adolescents because studies have identified increased suicide risk among adolescents taking them. … [visit site to read more]

“Asaria isa asaria ari masheetee sadabada vena amina gotaya menda meshela mosha nami ki toro ma…”

Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, has fascinated thinkers ever since the “tongues of angels” descended upon early believers as a gift from the Holy Ghost in the New Testament of the Bible. This unusual mental state, characterized by utterances that sometimes sound like an untranslated psalm from Mars, typically occurs during instances of religious excitation, and is primarily associated with Pentecostal religious practices. It has commonly been considered a form of ecstatic trance accompanied by verbal utterances not found in any language. … [visit site to read more]

Millions of people around the world suffer from depression, the most common mental disorder of all. Since depression appears to be largely genetic, several long-standing questions continue to bedevil researchers. Have the genes for clinical unipolar depression undergone selective evolution–or is depression a random product of mutation, evolutionary drift, or other non-selective forces?

The symptoms of depression are found in every culture and time period, from the ancient Greeks to modern New Yorkers, from the !Kung of southern Africa to ranchers in the American West. Why is depression so much more common than any other major mental illness? Clearly, it is a malfunction, a maladaptation — or is it? … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

• The Origin of the Human Mind – Insights from Brain Imaging and Evolution
• Brain Blogging, Twenty-Fourth Edition
• Hi-Tech Medicine
• Make Money for Charity Debating Fundamentalists, Part I: The Games
• New Tool to Diagnose Adolescent Depression

The completion of the sequencing of the human genome in 2003 was an outstanding scientific accomplishment. This achievement, together with advances in technology and the forces of capitalism and competition, has brought genetic testing directly to the consumer. However, this Pandora’s box is proving difficult to manage for many people.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests are marketed to consumers primarily through the Internet. Consumers are motivated by education, recreation, and preventive health care, but the answers obtained from the tests do not necessarily provide meaningful information. … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

• Neurobiology, Genetics, and the Environment
• Alzheimer’s Disease – Prevention or Delay by Altering Lifestyle?
• A Step Closer to the Great “Gene” Sale?
• Hitler’s Guide to Propaganda – The Psychology of Coercion
• Documentation in Rehabilitation

Dizziness is responsible for nearly 3 million emergency room visits every year in the United States. In most of the cases, the dizziness is caused by a benign inner ear problem, or is the result of short-lived discomfort or distress, including anxiety, depression, or certain phobias. However, approximately 4% of patients that present to the emergency room complaining of dizziness are experiencing a stroke or transient ischemic attack. Since more than half of patients with dizziness who are experiencing a stroke show no other symptoms, misdiagnosis is frequent and common. Now, a study published in the journal Stroke reports that a simple one-minute bedside eye exam could be more effective in diagnosing stroke than Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

• Diagnosing Child Abuse
• The Bipolar Trend
• Holy Book of the Psychiatric World
• Conflicts of Interest in Drug Prescribing
• Female Physicians Responsible for Shortage of Doctors?

Cognitive enhancers, also known as nootropics, are a category of drugs with the ability to increase mental performance. Many rave about such “smart drugs” helping them to study, take tests, or increase work performance. Ginkgo biloba, piracetam, and vinpocetine are some popular cognitive enhancers, all with varying mechanisms of action in the human brain. For example, Ginko biloba increases blood circulation; the simple idea regarding its effect is that increased blood circulation results in a more energized brain. Still, the FDA has not yet confirmed how effective any of these “smart drugs” are; as a result, cognitive enhancers are presently deemed supplements. … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

• Brainy Kids’ Brains Develop Slowly
• Rabies Virus Helps Deliver Drugs into the Brain
• Video
• Subscribe
• Presidential Politics and Physicians