Patients with head injuries who also take anticoagulants have a similar or greater risk of intracranial injury as have those who are at a previously defined moderate risk. A prospective study in the March 10 Lancet looked at 144 patients, the majority of whom were elderly women who had fallen, were taking anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation, and had raised international normalized ratios. The authors recommended that intracranial imaging during emergency assessment for head trauma be done in all patients receiving anticoagulants.

A three-year animal study, presented at the 221st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, showed that soy reduced the number of protein changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. “Consistent with our expectation that the soy phytoestrogens would have ‘beneficial’ effects, we found fewer Alzheimer’s disease-linked tau protein changes in the brains of monkeys that received soy isoflavones,” said lead researcher, Helen Kim, PhD. She went on to say that “what was interesting, and the complication, is that these [tau protein] changes were not evident, at least to the same extent, in the brains of the animals that were given estrogen.”

Enhanced expression of the a7ß1 integrin may allow for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other muscle diseases that arise due to defects in the dystrophin gycloprotein complex, according to a study in the March 19 Journal of Cell Biology. “The implications are that you could do gene therapy with an integrin chain to treat a muscular dystrophy that’s caused by a membrane protein deficiency,” said co-author Stephen J. Kaufman, PhD. “Or you could chemically stimulate integrin chain production from the patient’s existing integrin chain genes.” By enhancing the production of the a7ß1 integrin on muscle tissue, the scientists reduced the muscle-related problems and increased by three-fold the lifetimes of affected mice.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) not only relieve pain at the local site of inflammation but also affect the entire central nervous system, according to a study in the March 22 Nature. The study indicated that cyclooxygenase-2 is expressed throughout the central nervous system, as well as at local sites of inflammation. “Targeting the central nervous system when using NSAIDs, rather than the specific peripheral pain site, may result in more effective pain relief,” noted Cheryl A. Kitt, PhD, of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

A mentally stimulating environment may help protect against the damaging affects of lead poisoning, according to a study in the March 30 Brain Research. Rats were placed in two environments: mentally stimulating and not mentally stimulating. Half the rats in each group were given lead-laced water for several weeks. The rats in the stimulating environment that were given lead-laced water were better able to learn and had higher concentrations of brain chemicals important to brain cell health than had rats that were isolated and that were given lead-free water. “Our research suggests the possibility that environment enrichment may make the brain more resistant to lead’s toxic effects, lessening the effects on a child’s development,” said researcher Theodore Lidsky, PhD.

The GNß3 gene 825 C/T polymorphism is significantly associated with incident clinical ischemic stroke in white, middle-aged Americans, according to a study in the April Stroke. The finding was not found in black Americans, nor is it mediated by blood pressure, hypertension, or other known stroke risk factors.

It appears that “the risk for heart disease in familial combined hyperlipidemia extends beyond insulin resistance and the amount of deep abdominal fat and also likely extends beyond the presence of small, dense which occurs in both familial combined hyperlipidemia and insulin resistance,” according to Jonathan Q. Purnell, MD, lead author of a study in the April Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Individuals with familial combined hyperlipidemia had significantly higher levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, very-low density lipoproteins, low-density lipoproteins, and apolipoprotein B than did age-matched or age- and weight-matched controls.

Long-term use of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or “ecstasy” damages the hippocampus, which manifests as memory loss or impairment, according to a study in the April 10 Neurology. Memory test scores declined by 50% over a year in the study cohort. The participants used MDMA an average of 2.4 times per month. The study did not indicate, however, that using the drug once or twice caused permanent memory loss, noted lead author Konstantine Zakzanis, PhD.

Rats treated with an intravenous delivery of adult rat stromal cells returned to normal or near normal function within 14 days of a stroke, according to findings in the April Stroke. Rats treated on the first and the seventh day after stroke had similar rates of recovery, suggesting the treatment window may be lengthened. “This study suggests that an infusion of the patient’s own stromal cells provides significant benefit to the stroke patient and is easily administered,” said researcher Michael Chopp, PhD. “We believe we have a therapy that shows promise in treating stroke, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, and traumatic injury,” he said.

Coenzyme Q10 deficiency is a potentially important cause of familial cerebellar ataxia, according to a study in the April 10 Neurology. The study indicated that six patients with hereditary ataxia with no known genetic cause had a 26% to 35% lower than normal level of coenzyme Q10. The patients were then given daily supplements of coenzyme Q10, ranging from 300 mg to 3000 mg. All patients improved with supplementation as demonstrated by increased strength, lessened ataxia, and less frequent seizures.

A study in the April Circulation shows that the ß-blocker metoprolol CR/XL reduced the rate of progression of carotid intima-media thickness in clinically healthy, symptom-free subjects with carotid plaque. The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the effects of low-dose metoprolol CR/XL (25 mg daily) and fluvastatin (40 mg daily) on the progression of carotid intima-media thickness in 793 subjects during 36 months. The research indicated that the central nervous system may play an important role in accelerating atherosclerosis development. The study also demonstrated that fluvastatin reduced the rate of progression of thickening of the inner lining of the carotid arteries by 75%.

People who have the cognitive difficulties associated with multiple sclerosis are at an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, according to a study in the April 24 Neurology. The study included 13 individuals with multiple sclerosis and cognitive difficulties, 15 individuals with multiple sclerosis without cognitive difficulties, and 17 individuals without multiple sclerosis. Based on the results of two computerized driving tests, people with multiple sclerosis and cognitive difficulties have a 1,721 millisecond slower reaction time than other multiple sclerosis patients have. The study indicated that 29% of the participants with multiple sclerosis and cognitive difficulties are at high risk for motor vehicle accidents.

Semantic dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are associated with different patterns of temporal lobe atrophy, found researchers from London, UK. The study, in the April Annals of Neurology, evaluated magnetic resonance imaging scans of 10 people with semantic dementia, 10 with Alzheimer’s disease, and 10 with normal cognitive function. Semantic dementia was associated with primarily frontal left temporal lobe atrophy, while Alzheimer’s disease was associated with symmetrical medial temporal lobe atrophy.

People with dyslexia who speak Italian perform better on reading tasks than do those who speak English or French, although positron emission tomography scans indicate that people with dyslexia have the same neurocognitive deficits in the left hemisphere of the brain. The authors of a study in the March 16 Science noted that the Italian language has a much shallower orthography than English or French, “where the mapping between letters, speech sounds, and whole-word sounds is often highly ambiguous.”

A longer reproductive period, as an indicator of long-term exposure to endogenous estrogen, does not reduce the risk of dementia in women, according to a study in the March 21 JAMA. The population-based prospective cohort study looked at 3,601 women who did not have dementia at baseline and were part of the larger Rotterdam Study. After adjusting for multiple confounding variables, there was actually a higher risk of dementia in women with a longer reproductive period. This risk was found in women with at least one apolipoprotein, APOE*E4 allele.

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