BreakThrough Digest Medical News |
| Restoring paretic hand function via an artificial neural connection bridging spinal cord injury Posted: 10 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT Functional loss of limb control in individuals with spinal cord injury or stroke can be caused by interruption of the neural pathways between brain and spinal cord, although the neural circuits located above and below the lesion remain functional. An artificial neural connection that bridges the lost pathway and connects brain to spinal circuits has potential to ameliorate the functional loss. Yukio Nishimura, Associate Professor of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan, and Eberhard Fetz, Professor and Steve Perlmuter, Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington, United States investigated the effects of introducing a novel artificial neural connection which bridged a spinal cord lesion in a paretic monkey. This allowed the monkey to electrically stimulate the spinal cord through volitionally controlled brain activity and thereby to restore volitional control of the paretic hand. This study demonstrates that artificial neural connections can compensate for interrupted descending pathways and promote volitional control of upper limb movement after damage of neural pathways such as spinal cord injury or stroke. The study will be published online in Frontiers in Neural Circuits on April 11.
“The important point is that individuals who are paralyzed want to be able to move their own bodies by their own will. This study was different from what other research groups have done up to now; we didn’t use any prosthetic limbs like robotic arms to replace the original arm. What’s new is that we have been able to use this artificial neuronal connection bypassing the lesion site to restore volitional control of the subject’s own paretic arm. I think that for lesions of the corticospinal pathway this might even have a better chance of becoming a real prosthetic treatment rather than the sort of robotic devices that have been developed recently”, Associate professor Nishimura said. Contact: Dr. Yukio Nishimura |
| Most effective PTSD therapies are not being widely used, researchers find Posted: 10 Apr 2013 09:00 PM PDT Post-traumatic stress disorder affects nearly 8 million adults in any given year, federal statistics show. Fortunately, clinical research has identified certain psychological interventions that effectively ameliorate the symptoms of PTSD. But most people struggling with PTSD don’t receive those treatments, according to a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
In the report, internationally renowned trauma expert Edna Foa of the University of Pennsylvania and a team of distinguished psychological scientists review studies describing interventions that can effectively treat PTSD. Foa, an Association for Psychological Science fellow, pioneered the use of prolonged exposure therapy (PE), in which patients approach ? in both imaginary and real-life settings ? situations, places, and people they have been avoiding. The repeated exposure to the perceived threat disconfirms individuals’ expectations of experiencing harm and, over time, leads to a reduction in their fear. Foa authored the new report with Seth Gillihan of Haverford College in Pennsylvania and Richard Bryant of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Over years of testing, PE and other forms of cognitive behavioral therapy have proved highly effective in addressing the distress and dysfunctional problems that trauma victims experience. However, the majority of mental health professionals do not use such evidence-based treatments (EBTs) when working with patients suffering from PTSD, the researchers write. Many clinicians believe that good psychotherapy should be individualized and should focus on the underlying causes of one’s problems and symptoms. But studies show scant evidence that psychodynamic therapy ? which focuses on such issues as difficult childhood relationship with parents ? effectively eases PTSD symptoms, according to the report. Foa and her colleagues say their findings are important given that traumatic events such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and gun violence are on the rise. Recent history offers prime examples of that trend. More than 273,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder over the past decade, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports. Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that at least one-third of residents in the path of Hurricane Katrina suffered some form of post-traumatic stress after the 2005 storm. And in the two months following last year’s tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, more than 16 percent of Newtown, Connecticut’s police force had missed work because of PTSD-related issues, according to news reports. “Not counting traumatic events that are experienced by individuals as opposed to entire populations, the number of people who need help for their PTSD and related symptoms is mind boggling,” Foa and her co-authors write. “Thus PTSD treatment researchers are acutely aware of the tremendous need to disseminate effective treatments widely such that patients have access to them, and are also aware of the challenges to successfully meet this need.” The report, “Challenges and Successes in Dissemination of Evidence-Based Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress: Lessons Learned From Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD,” is accompanied by an editorial from Bradley E. Karlin and Madhulika Agarwal of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Central Office in Washington, DC. ### The full report and the accompanying editorial are available free online at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/ptsd.html. Psychological Science in the Public Interest is a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. It publishes an eclectic mix of thought-provoking articles on the latest important advances in psychology. For a copy of the article “Challenges and Successes in Dissemination of Evidence-Based Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress: Lessons Learned From Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD” and access to other Psychological Science in the Public Interest research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from BreakThrough Digest Medical News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
