An Overview Of Why Cost Analysis Among Physicians Is Not A Reliable Marker Of Quality
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Imagine waking up and being unable to see or recognize anything on the left side of your body. This condition, called hemispatial neglect, is common after a stroke that occurs on the right side of the brain. The current treatment of attention and concentration training using computer and pencil-and-paper tasks is inadequate.
As any student who’s had to study for multiple exams can tell you, trying to learn two different sets of facts one after another is challenging. As you study for the physics exam, almost inevitably some of the information for the history exam is forgotten. It has been widely believed that this interference between memories develops because the brain simply does not have the capacity necessary to process both memories in quick succession. But is this truly the case?
Scientists at the University of Southern California have pinned down the region of the brain responsible for a key survival trait: our ability to comprehend a scene — even one never previously encountered — in a fraction of a second. The study appears in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
We have all watched it unfold on soap operas, medical dramas and films: A patient falls into a coma, and loved ones at the bedside try to peel away the veil by talking or reading aloud. Some of us have done it ourselves, desperately hoping for any hint of wakening or awareness. For Theresa Louise-Bender Pape, who studies patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in various stages of coma and recovery, the “it can’t hurt” reasoning just is not good enough. She needs evidence. She wants answers. She is now testing two new therapies, familiar voices and magnetic stimulation, in two clinical trials.
Measurements of hand movement control may help determine the severity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, according to joint studies published in the February 15, 2011, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. ADHD is a brain disorder characterized by impulsiveness, hyperactivity, such as not being able to sit still, and inattention or difficulty staying focused.
What sounds like science fiction is actually now possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. What happens in the brain in this context has been unclear up to now. Medical experts from Bochum under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Klaus Funke (Department of Neurophysiology) have shown that various stimulus patterns changed the activity of distinct neuronal cell types. In addition, certain stimulus patterns led to rats learning more easily. The knowledge obtained could contribute to cerebral stimulation being used more purposefully in future to treat functional disorders of the brain.
When elderly drivers get behind the wheel, they often confront the harrowing reality that they cannot easily see other cars, pedestrians, or cyclists moving around them. This frightening effect of aging, it turns out, is not necessarily a result of a reduced ability to perceive moving objects, as one might suspect, but a heightened awareness of the backdrop against which these objects move. The research, conducted at the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at the Harvard Medical School, will be published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
By applying electrical current to the brain, researchers reporting online on November 4 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have shown that they could enhance a person’s mathematical performance for up to 6 months without influencing their other cognitive functions. The findings may lead to treatments for the estimated 20 percent of the population with moderate to severe numerical disabilities (for example, dyscalculia) and for those who lose their skill with numbers as a result of stroke or degenerative disease, according to the researchers.
In a study to determine the durability and long-term effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), psychiatric researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found the non-invasive, non-drug therapy to be an effective, long-term treatment for major depression. Results of the study were published in the October 2010 issue of Brain Stimulation, a journal published by Elsevier.
Each time we perform a simple task, like pushing an elevator button or reaching for a cup of coffee, the brain races to decide whether the left or right hand will do the job. But the left hand is more likely to win if a certain region of the brain receives magnetic stimulation, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.
