my dear judith
i hope you don't mind my re-posting this news article
[complete with your signature]
this news article is incredible
i think it should have bells and whistles and noisemakers attached to it!
wouldn't you know it
when i glanced past the headline
i assumed the 'London' location was in the U.K.
and didn't realize that it was 'London' in our very own Ontario!
go Canada!
exponential, that's what i think!
your cyber-sis in stirring scientific circles
janet
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Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 11:58:44 -0500
From: judith richards <[log in to unmask]>
Subj: News-Test for brain speed found
To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN <[log in to unmask]>
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December 3, 1998
LONDONERS FIND TEST FOR BRAIN SPEED
By Mary-Jane Egan -- Free Press Health Reporter
LONDON, Ont.--London researchers have discovered a new key to unlocking the brain's mysteries, holding out hope for a range of brain disorders from Lou Gehrig's and PARKINSON'S diseases to stroke and Alzheimer's.
The breakthrough by physicist Dr. Ravi Menon and his team at Robarts Research Institute marks a world-first in the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure, in real time, how long it takes the brain to process and respond to information.
The discovery -- published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal in the U.S -- is causing a stir in scientific circles. Detecting and tracking swift deterioration in the brains of patients with diseases such as Lou Gehrig's have long eluded medical experts.
Armed with Canada's only four-tesla MRI (a magnet 80,000 times the Earth's magnetic field), Menon's imaging team has produced high-resolution video images called "mental chronometry," capable of measuring brain response sequences every 50 milliseconds.
While it remains a mystery why active parts of the brain use more oxygen, Menon -- who co-developed functional MRI six years ago -- discovered oxygen in the blood changes the MRI signal.
Using a specialized video game, blood flow responses in healthy subjects were compared to patients with neurological disorders to pinpoint areas of the brain where cells are breaking down and reaction times plummeting. Changes in the brain, based on increased oxygen, light up in colour.
The implications of the discovery are "enormous," said Mark Poznansky, president and scientific director at Robarts.
Because a vast number of brain disorders such as Parkinsons and epilepsy are based on "timing disruptions," Poznansky said the new process will not only reveal the progress of a disease but create potential for "targeted therapies," such as injecting a drug into a particular artery.
The new images could also lead to more precise brain surgery, ensuring only damaged tissue is removed.
Poznansky predicted the system could become a vital diagnostic tool for early detection and quicker intervention of brain abnormalities.
For stroke patients or others who've suffered a "brain assault," Menon said mental chronometry will detect which therapies work and which hold no promise.
"We've already seen this in our brain tumour patients," he said, noting a patient is often temporarily paralysed after surgery due to swelling.
By placing such patients in the magnet and telling them to move their right hand, for instance, if motor areas in that part of the brain light up, the doctor knows the paralysis is temporary. If not, it's known the hand function won't recover and other therapies should be pursued.
Menon said his team's discovery is a "non-invasive" extension of the trailblazing work 60 years ago with epilepsy patients by the late Wilder Penfield, a Canadian brain surgery pioneer. Penfield stimulated various parts of the brain, noted patient responses and "mapped" areas responsible for such things as emotion, memory, colour and smell.
Robarts' team is measuring those responses without cutting into the skull. The discovery may have legal and ethical implications, Menon noted.
Tests of Lou Gehrig's patients -- many of whom, near the end of their fatal illness, can communicate only by blinking their eyes -- have shown that while some have major brain damage, others have "no cognitive damage right to the end."
That finding, Menon said, could impact decisions such as medical "do not resuscitate" orders and living wills. He said it would be a "question for the future" as to whether the technology would be used to answer thorny issues such as whether a person is "of sound mind."
Menon and assistants Joseph Gati and David Luknowsky have already received some grants to pursue their research. But Menon says more funding is vital to the project. It costs $500 an hour to operate the scanner that produces the images, and Menon's team is anxious to pursue tests on more patients.
"I think we're still learning all the implications of what this can do," Menon said. "Most important, it's helping us understand how the normal brain works because without a better understanding of that, we can't understand diseases."
--
Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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