Tag: Neurology

Magnetic Stimulation Restores Bladder Control in Paralyzed Men

Patients with spinal cord injuries report that in addition to paralysis the lack of bladder control is one of the most troubling issues. At University of California Los Angeles, researchers have shown that they were able to restore significant bladder control to five men that suffered through spinal cord injuries years prior to treatment. The [&hel (Read more...)

“Hey Chloe” AI Platform for Poor Vision: Interview with Tad Reynes of AT&T and Greg Stilson of Aira

AT&T has paired up with Aira, a La Jolla, California company, to develop technology to assist those with low vision to read important text, such as labels on medication bottles. Their system relies on Aira’s augmented reality smart glasses, which contain a camera and allow people with low vision to talk with a remote agent over [&hel (Read more...)

Mechanoceuticals to Replace Chemical Drugs by Tugging on Cells

Chemicals, delivered in the form of drugs, are the most common way of influencing the activities of cells in our bodies. While great in many ways, there are a myriad of limitations and side effects for clinicians and patients to grapple with. UCLA bioengineers are investigating whether targeted physical manipulation could serve as an additional [&h (Read more...)

Automation of Patch Clamp Technique to Speed Brain Studies

The patch clamp technique, for which the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded, is widely used to study the electrical activity of individual cells. It is particularly useful in neuroscience because electricity is the language through which neurons communicate. But it is slow and tedious since it requires a trained specialist to [& (Read more...)

Genotype-Specific Microparticle Treatment for Brain Cancer

Researchers from Harvard and MIT have developed microparticles that can treat a specific genetic subtype of glioma, a brain cancer. The microparticles slowly release a drug that specifically targets cancer cells that rely on a particular enzyme. During surgery to remove the brain tumor, clinicians can conduct a rapid (30 min) genetic test on a [&he (Read more...)

Drop of Blood Enough for This Device to Diagnose Brain Injury

Brain injuries, particularly the milder ones, are difficult to accurately diagnose. CT scanners can help, but often they just don’t have the resolution for clinicians to identify unusual aberrations in the image. Moreover, they expose patients to radiation, are not always available, and the process of using them and evaluating the images prod (Read more...)

Map’s Connectivity Map Traced by Artificial Neural Networks

Our brains are composed of billions of nerve cells and each of those cells can be connected to thousands of other individual cells, making for an incredibly complex network. While three-dimensional electron microscopy is used to image cells and their connections, typically manual observation and mapping is used to create the connectivity diagr (Read more...)