epilepsy

The findings could lead to new treatment strategies and new ways to detect autism early, the researchers say. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting nearly 1 in 88 children.

Many patients with epilepsy are required to take chronically an AED such as phenytoin, phenobarbital, carbamazepine, primidone, and valproate alone or in combination to control seizures. There is much medical evidence reporting that these AEDs may accelerate bone loss, increasing the risk of osteoporotic fractures.

Obama’s vague announcement on 2 April had left out key details, such as what the initiative’s specific goals would be and how it would be implemented. So at their first opportunity — a workshop convened on 6 May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Kavli Foundation of Oxnard, California — researchers from across the neuroscience spectrum swarmed to fill in the blanks and advocate for their favourite causes.

The researchers describe, for the first time, that faulty wiring occurs when RNA molecules embedded in a growing axon are not degraded after they give instructions that help steer the nerve cell. So, for example, the signal that tells the axon to turn — which should disappear after the turn is made — remains active, interfering with new signals meant to guide the axon in other directions.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have found that a gene already implicated in human speech disorders and epilepsy is also needed for vocalizations and synapse formation in mice. The finding, they say, adds to scientific understanding of how language develops, as well as the way synapses — the connections among brain cells that enable us to think — are formed.

About one-third of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy do not respond to medical treatment and opt to do lobectomies to alleviate their symptoms. Yet the surgery’s success rate is only 60 to 70 percent because of the difficulties in identifying the diseased brain tissue prior to the procedures.

To better understand the process of neurogenesis, the researchers used a genetic approach known as neonatal electroporation to deliver pieces of DNA into neural stem cells in young mice, which allowed them to express and control specific components of the mTOR pathway.

The pig, the jellyfish and the zebrafish are being used by scientists at Aarhus University to, among other things, gain a greater understanding of hereditary forms of diseases affecting the nervous system. This can be disorders like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, epilepsy and the motor neurone disease ALS.

Scientists say mutations in one such autism-linked gene, dubbed NHE9, which is involved in transporting substances in and out of structures within the cell, causes communication problems among brain cells that likely contribute to autism.

TSC is a genetic disease affecting approximately 50,000 in the United States and up to 1 million worldwide. It causes tumors to form in vital organs, primarily the brain, heart, kidneys, skin, eyes, liver and lungs. TSC is also the leading genetic cause of both epilepsy and autism. Currently, there is no cure.