Cloud-based imaging software cleared by FDA to assist in blood flow analysis

This is cardiac not cerebral so our great stroke association needs to run some followup research for our use. But that won't occur with our fucking failures of stroke associations. Because if we know what blood flow problems there are we could use the arteriogenesis and angiogenesis protocols to creates better blood flow.
http://www.healio.com/cardiology/imaging/news/online/%7Bdf1f5ba0-5f15-43f7-8b87-e28f390184dc%7D/cloud-based-imaging-software-cleared-by-fda-to-assist-in-blood-flow-analysis?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cardiology%20news

Arterys announced that its cloud-based medical imaging software has been cleared by the FDA to be used for quantification of cardiac flow in clinical settings.

The system (Arterys Software) includes 4D flow and 2D phase contrast workflows, as well as cardiac function measurements, according to a press release from the company, which also stated that the system was previously cleared to provide 4D flow visualization.
The software program can analyze blood flow to the heart and vessels via multislice, multiphase and velocity-coated 4D MRIs, and has been validated with images taken from 1.5-Tesla and 3-T MRI scanners, according to the release.
The system can be used to assist clinical decision making for patients with complex congenital heart disease, shunts and collateral vessels, aortic disease and valvular disease, the company stated in the release.

Simple exercises to improve your balance

You shouldn't have to buy this. Your Physical therapist should have a stroke protocol for balance already. If not incompetence reigns in your stroke hospital, the stroke department head needs to get fired.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard Medical School

To

dean

Today at 5:33 PM

Learn the steps that will keep you steady on your feet.

Learn the steps that will keep you steady on your feet!

Inside Better Balance, you’ll discover: ✓ How balance works ✓ 6 complete workouts ✓ SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: Preventing falls ✓ Activities that enhance balance ✓ And so much more! Inside Better Balance, you’ll discover: ✓ How balance works ✓ 6 complete workouts ✓ SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: Preventing falls ✓ Activities that enhance balance ✓ And so much more! Dear dean, We've all heard stories that begin, "She broke her hip and after that..." Broken hips can be disastrous for independence and long-term health. Fortunately, many can be prevented — more than 90% of broken hips occur because of falls. One of the best ways to prevent falls is to maintain a sound, responsive, and enduring sense of balance. This important Special Health Report from doctors at Harvard Medical School shows you how you can prevent falls. In its pages you will discover what you can do to improve balance and maintain strength, mobility, and agility. Better Balance will brief you on the conditions, medications, and situations that can create instability. You'll get tips for fall-proofing your home. And most important, Better Balance will walk, lift, bend, and stretch you through a series of workouts and exercises that will increase your stability, confidence, and self-reliance. The report provides all you need to know about using exercise to improve posture, increase muscle strength and speed, sharpen reflexes, expand flexibility, and firm your core. Filled with workouts that respect your time and budget, Better Balance gives you step-by-step instructions for achieving greater static and dynamic balance. The report includes complete, illustrated workouts that you can do at home — on your own schedule and at your own pace. Certified Master Trainers developed these exercises in consultation with Harvard Medical School physicians. These workouts include guidance on proper techniques, movement and tempo, and modifying the workouts to your own fitness level and exercise goals. These are exercises that will keep you motivated and keep you moving. Our goal in this report is to help you keep yourself from a potentially devastating fall. If you want to protect yourself from instability, if you want to continue to enjoy the independence and peace of mind that sound balance gives you, take the first step now. Order your copy of Better Balance today. To your good health, Gregory D. Curfman, M.D. Editor in Chief, Harvard Health Publications

Scientists identify 'collateral vessel' gene that protects against stroke damage

Bet your doctor doesn't know about this and will never know about this. But no idea what use knowledge of this will do.  Good for researchers but useless for survivors.
http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2016-11-scientists-collateral-vessel-gene.html

When the gene Rabep2 is deficient, the number and diameter of collateral blood vessels -- normally present during brain development -- are reduced by 50 to 60 percent, and the amount of brain tissue that dies after stroke is more than doubled. Credit: Faber lab, UNC School of Medicine

Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have found a major clue that may explain why some people sustain relatively little damage from strokes or heart attacks despite severe arterial blockages. The clue lies in the little-understood gene Rabep2.

Scientists have known that when an artery is blocked, the damage to tissues downstream is often limited because these tissues continue to be nourished by special "collateral" vessels that connect the tissue to other arteries. However, for reasons that haven't been understood, the number and size of these collateral vessels - and thus the protection they afford - can vary greatly from one individual to the next. The UNC scientists have now implicated the Rabep2 gene as a major contributor to this variation in collateral vessel formation.
In a paper published in the journal Stroke, a research team led by James Faber, PhD, professor of cell biology and physiology, found that variants of this gene account for most of the differences in collateral vasculature among laboratory mice. Faber said that since humans and mice are more than 90 percent genetically similar, the human version of Rabep2 is likely to have a comparable function.
Through a series of experiments, researchers replaced a defective variant of the gene in a mouse strain with poor collaterals with a normal copy of the gene, resulting in the formation of abundant collateral vessels during embryonic development and much greater resistance to tissue injury and cell death when the mice were subjected to experimental stroke as adults.
The UNC scientists hope that one day doctors will be able to use a simple blood test to detect variants of the human form of the gene. This would help doctors quickly gauge the extent of collateral vessels in patients who experience heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, and occlusive disorders in other tissues.
"Whether patients have good or poor collaterals strongly influences the severity of tissue injury after an occlusion and affects doctors' decisions about how to treat patients or prescribe preventive measures," said Faber, who is also a member of the McAllister Heart Institute and the Curriculum in Neurobiology at UNC.
In principle, Faber added, the findings also could help lead to therapies that stimulate the formation of more collateral vessels in healthy people to reduce the severity of tissue injury in the event of a future arterial blockage, as well as in people who already have occlusions, thereby reducing damage and improving their recovery.

The Stroke paper comes nine years after Faber and his colleagues first observed that the extent of the collateral vasculature - and thus the damage after arterial occlusion - can differ greatly between different strains of lab mice, even though no differences in the rest of the circulatory systems were evident.
After this initial observation, Faber hypothesized that genetic differences might trigger these wide disparities in the extent of collaterals. Faber and colleagues began a tedious and lengthy search for the genetic factors responsible. They focused on collateral vessels in the brain, which are easier to image than in other tissues, and undertook experiments involving thousands of mice. By 2014, the group had narrowed the search to a small region on mouse chromosome 7, the variations of which accounted for nearly all of the differences in collateral development and tissue injury in the brains, hind limbs, and other tissues they examined.
In the new study, the researchers set out to identify the particular gene in this region that might explain the differences in collateral vessel development. From the 28 protein-coding genes in the region, the scientists were able to exclude 13, after determining that mice lacking any of those genes didn't have more or fewer collaterals.
Of the 15 remaining genes under suspicion, Faber and colleagues decided to focus on their top suspect, Rabep2. Little was known about this gene, but the scientists had previously found a Rabep2 variant in mouse strains with low collateral extent, whereas high-collateral strains had the normal version of the gene. The variant differs from the normal gene in only a single DNA "letter," but that change - because of its location - is predicted to impair the function of the resulting protein, Faber said.
Using new CRISPR gene-editing technology, the team was able to test the effect of this Rabep2 variant. They replaced the DNA letter in normal Rabep2 that is present in the genomes of high-collateral mice with the suspect variant. The result: the mice formed many fewer collaterals during development and had much greater stroke damage as adults. And this shift was even greater when the gene was deleted entirely.
Conversely, in mice from the low-collateral strain, replacing the variant gene with the normal one induced the animals to develop the abundant collateral vasculature present in the high-collateral strain. These beneficially "edited" mice were thus far more resistant to damage from stroke.
"We basically took mice of a strain that normally shows a very large area of tissue damage after an arterial obstruction in the brain, and - by editing that one gene - created mice that experienced much less damage after obstruction at the same site," Faber said.
How the Rabep2 protein influences the formation of collateral vessels in early life isn't entirely clear, but the gene is known to play a role in the transport and recycling of signaling molecules in cells. Faber and colleagues were able to find evidence suggesting that the lack of fully functional Rabep2 protein leads to deficient signaling of a major vascular growth factor, specifically in the cells that develop into collateral vessels.
Why does a deficiency of Rabep2 affect the development only of collateral vessels? Faber suspects that this is because the rest of the circulatory system's components - arteries, capillaries, and veins - are more important to survival thus have evolved extensive redundancies in their developmental pathways.
"An animal can have no collateral vessels and still be perfectly healthy," he said. "It doesn't really need those collaterals until it has an arterial occlusion."
Faber and his colleagues have now begun studies in patients with stroke to test for involvement of variants of Rabep2 and other related genes.

Provided by: University of North Carolina Health Care

Stroke care insight - Home rehabilitation as good as hospital services: Study

Totally wrong title. It should be Home rehab is just as fucking bad as at a hospital.  They are trying to make a 10% full recovery rate sound reasonable. It is a complete and total failure.  You need to fire people who do that poorly.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1161104/jsp/nation/story_117367.jsp#.WB3qXnpuGx8
G.S. Mudur
New Delhi, Nov. 3: Home-based care for survivors of strokes when appropriately supervised appears to be as good as expensive hospital-based rehabilitation, a 13-city research study in India has suggested.
The two-year study which tracked the progress of 1,250 survivors of stroke has found that patients who had received home-based rehabilitation had similar levels of improvement or disability as those who received usual care.
Neurologists and public health specialists are considering the results as important given India's large number of stroke patients, the lack of appropriate stroke facilities in the country, and the fragmented nature of rehabilitation services that survivors currently receive.

"We find that family members can provide a cocoon of care for rehabilitation, but only when supervised and as a supplement to good clinical care during the acute phase of the stroke," said G.V.S. Murthy, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad. "Without supervision, stand-alone family care does not help much."
The researchers set out with the hypothesis that that home-based care, if well supervised and followed with rigour, may result in reduced mortality and disability and help lower cost of rehabilitation.(So you started out with the idea that rehab failure was ok!) This was based on the assumption that repeated visits to the hospital would add to stress to the patient and expose them to hospital-linked infections.
However, the study has found that home-based care did not improve the health outcome over hospital visits - both groups of patients on average had similar levels of disability or improvements.
Doctors say the results highlight the need for India to invest in stroke care and stroke rehabilitation. Public health experts estimate that India currently has only about 35 well-equipped stroke facilities with equipment, medicines and staff with appropriate expertise to manage strokes during the acute phase.
Patients with stroke have the best chance of recovery if they receive appropriate treatment within three hours of the onset of symptoms. Murthy said the country might need about 500 stroke clinics for most patients to be able to easily access such treatment within three hours.
In the study, Murthy and neurologists from 14 hospitals in 13 cities - Bangalore, Calcutta, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guntur, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kochi, Ludhiana, New Delhi, Tezpur, Trivandrum, and Vellore - followed up stroke survivors recommended rehabilitation at home or usual standards of care.
"Currently, rehabilitation is very fragmented - some will seek hospital-based rehabilitation for periods of three to six months, some ask physiotherapists to come home, and some just rely on untrained family-based rehabilitation" said Jeyeraj Pandian, a neurologist at the Christian Medical College, Ludhiana.
The study found that supervised home-based rehabilitation - facilitated through a special manual of exercises and recommendations that family members had to read to work with the stroke survivors - had almost the same effect on patients as the usual standards of care.
The supervised home-based care was found completely safe and is likely to reduce the costs of hospital-based rehabilitation services, the researchers said. The current costs of stroke treatment and rehabilitation range anywhere from Rs 90,000 to Rs 600,000, depending on hospitals where the services are sought, Pandian said.
However, some medical experts say the role of expert supervision should not be underestimated in stroke rehabilitation. "Neuro-rehabilitation is an advanced science - family caregivers will need constant supervision from physiotherapists specially trained for this," said Rajesh Aggarwal, a New Delhi-based physiotherapist.(It is not an advanced science, there are no stroke rehab protocols. Everything is just 'winging it'.)

Does The Motor Cortex Inhibit Movement?

Interesting theory, what does your doctor think? Does your doctor have enough neurons to think?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/11/03/motor-cortex-inhibit/#.WBwuAHpuGx8

Nanomicelles loaded with doxorubicin and curcumin for alleviating multidrug resistance in lung cancer

Curcumin would be good for stroke survivors but your doctor will do nothing about it.

Enhancing absorption and bioavailability of curcumin and turmeric

The latest here:

Nanomicelles loaded with doxorubicin and curcumin for alleviating multidrug resistance in lung cancer

Authors Gu Y, Li J, Li Y, Song L, Li D, Peng LP, Wan Y, Hua SC
Received 31 July 2016
Accepted for publication 4 October 2016
Published 3 November 2016 Volume 2016:11 Pages 5757—5770
DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S118568
Checked for plagiarism Yes
Review by Single-blind
Peer reviewers approved by Dr Akshita Wason
Peer reviewer comments 4
Editor who approved publication: Dr Linlin Sun

Yue Gu,^1,* Jing Li,^2,* Yang Li,¹ Lei Song,¹ Dan Li,¹ Liping Peng,¹ Ying Wan,³ Shucheng Hua<sup>1

1</sup>Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, ²Hubei Province Key Laboratory on Cardiovascular, Cerebrovascular, and Metabolic Disorders, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Xianning, ³College of Life Sciences and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Purpose: A new type of polymeric micelle (PM) was assembled using a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-linked (PEGylated) amphiphilic copolymer and d-tocopheryl PEG₁₀₀₀ succinate (TPGS₁₀₀₀). The micelles were used to deliver doxorubicin (DOX) and curcumin (CUR) for alleviating multidrug resistance (MDR) in lung cancer cells while enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of DOX.
Methods: Micelles loaded with DOX and CUR were assembled using a film-forming technique. Micelles were used to treat A549/Adr cells to find out whether micelles had the ability to reverse the MDR of A549/Adr cells. Some investigations were conducted using tumor-bearing mice to assess whether these micelles had enhanced antitumor efficacy as compared to DOX alone or the combination of DOX and CUR.
Results: Some micelles (DOX + CUR)–PMs had a small average size of about 17 nm and showed definite ability to deliver both DOX and CUR into DOX-resistant A549/Adr cells. The PMs had high cytotoxicity toward A549/Adr cells when the applied equivalent DOX dose was 1 µg/mL or higher. The cellular uptake of (DOX + CUR)–PMs into A549/Adr cells was found to be associated with an energy-dependent, caveolae-mediated, and clathrin-independent mechanism. (DOX + CUR)–PMs helped to prolong the circulation of DOX or CUR as compared to the individual administration of DOX or CUR, and they exhibited high inhibiting efficiency against the growth of tumors and were able to reduce the side effects of DOX.
Conclusion: TPGS₁₀₀₀ and CUR could synergistically reverse DOX-resistance of A549/Adr cells. In vivo examinations confirmed that the micelles had the capability to increase the plasma concentration of DOX or CUR, as well as to prolong their respective blood circulation. These micelles were able to significantly inhibit tumor growth in Lewis lung carcinoma tumor-bearing mice while reducing the side effects of DOX. The micelles showed potential in the treatment of lung cancer.

"Virtual physiotherapist" helps paralysed patients exercise using computer games

I bet this never makes it to your hospital. Incompetence from the fucking failures of stroke associations who don't do one damn thing to roll out effective therapy to stroke clinics and hospitals. 

"Virtual physiotherapist" helps paralysed patients exercise using computer games

06 October 2016

A simple device can improve the ability of patients with arm disability to play physiotherapy-like computer games, according to new research.

The low-cost invention, called gripAble™, consists of a lightweight electronic handgrip, which interacts wirelessly with a standard PC tablet to enable the user to play arm-training games.  To use it, patients squeeze, turn or lift the handgrip, and it vibrates in response to their performance whilst playing. The device uses a novel mechanism, which can detect the tiny flicker movements of severely paralysed patients and channel them into controlling a computer game.
Special-training computer games, controlled by the device, have been designed for people with no previous experience of using computers. For example one computer game requires the user to squeeze repeatedly to slowly reveal a photograph.
In a new study published in PLOS ONE, researchers from Imperial College London have shown that using the device increased the proportion of paralysed stroke patients able to direct movements on a tablet screen by 50 per cent compared to standard methods. In addition, the device enabled more than half of the severely disabled patients in the study to engage with arm-training software, whereas none of the patients were able to use conventional control methods such as swiping and tapping on tablets and smartphones.
A video showing the device in action, featuring a patient case study, is below
Over five million people in the UK live with arm weakness - approximately one million of them following a stroke, plus others who have neurological and musculoskeletal conditions.  Arm weakness contributes to physical disability that requires expensive long-term care.  For example, treatment for stroke costs the NHS £9 billion a year, which is five per cent of the total NHS budget. The only intervention shown to improve arm function is repetitive, task-specific exercise but this is limited by the cost and availability of physiotherapists.
The gripAble™ device is designed for patients to use unsupervised in hospital and at home. The research tested the gripAble™ device with stroke patients who had suffered successive strokes with arm paralysis at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust over six months. The researchers assessed their ability to use gripAble™  to control mobile gaming devices such as tablets that could be used for rehabilitation and compared this to their use of conventional methods such as swiping and tapping.

We have developed the gripAble™ device to improve arm and cognitive function of patients who have mild to severe arm weaknesses. Unlike other therapies currently on the NHS, gripAble™ is a low cost device which can be used in hospitals and independently by patients at home. As such it could potentially help save the health service millions of pounds

– Dr Paul Bentley

Senior Clinical Research Fellow

They found that 93 per cent of patients were able to make meaningful movements to direct the cursor as a result of using gripAble™.  In contrast, 67 per cent of patients were able to use mobile gaming devices by swiping on a tablet. For other types of control over the tablet, such as tapping or using joysticks, the number of patients able to make meaningful movements was lower.
The success of the device was most apparent for patients with severe arm weakness: no patients in this group were able to use conventional controls to play training games, whereas 58% could use gripAble™.
In a smaller sub-group the trial also demonstrated that severely disabled patients could play computer games that involve tracking a target with almost as good accuracy as healthy people.
The clinical trial was carried out at Charing Cross Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare Trust, between 2014 and 2015.  The team is now carrying out a feasibility study in North West London to test the use of the device in patients’ homes.
The potential of gripAble™ as a means of delivering cost-effective physiotherapy was recognised by a NHS England Innovation Challenge Prize in early 2016.
Lead researcher Dr Paul Bentley, who is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust , said: “In the UK 100,000 new cases of arm weaknesses are diagnosed each year following a stroke.  Often this impairs people’s ability to carry out daily activities, requiring long-term care. The use of mobile-gaming could provide a cost-effective and easily available means to improve the arm movements of stroke patients but in order to be effective patients of all levels of disability should be able to access it.
“We have developed the gripAble™ device to improve arm and cognitive function of patients who have mild to severe arm weaknesses.  Unlike other therapies currently on the NHS, gripAble™ is a low cost device which can be used in hospitals and independently by patients at home. As such it could potentially help save the health service millions of pounds. We now intend to further develop the device so we can help more patients who are currently suffering from the effects of poor arm and upper body mobility.”
The researchers collaborated with Human Robotics Group at Imperial College London to develop the device. The research is funded by the Imperial Confidence in Concept Award, the NHS England Innovation Challenge Prize, and the EU 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development grants.
To find out more about plans for the company and the current gripAble™ clinical trial please contact Dr Paul Rinne on paul.rinne@imperial.ac.uk.
Reference : Rinne P, Mace M, Nakornchai T, Zimmerman K, Fayer S, Sharma P, et al. (2016) Democratizing neurorehabilitation: how accessible are low-cost mobile-gaming technologies for self-rehabilitation of arm disability in stroke? PLoS ONE 11(10): e0163413. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163413
See the press release of this article

Early Watchman Experience Reassuring, But Many Questions Remain

Is your doctor good enough not to have problems with installing this device? Better than the success rate for tPA use and full stroke recovery?
http://cardiobrief.org/2016/11/04/early-watchman-experience-reassuring-but-many-questions-remain/
One paragraph;
In addition to the 95.6% rate of successful implantation, Reddy and colleagues reported a median procedure time of 50 minutes. About half of the procedures were performed by physicians who were not involved in Watchman clinical trials. There were 39 cases of pericardial tamponade, three procedure-related strokes, 9 device embolizations, and 3 procedure-related deaths.

Home care for stroke survivors

Nothing in here mentions results so they have no idea if home care gets the same results as in hospital care. Either way if they meet the average only 10% of survivors will almost fully recover. That is an unacceptable rate of failure. Throw that in your stroke managements face and watch them sputter.
http://www.thehealthsite.com/diseases-conditions/home-care-for-stroke-survivors-b1116/
If you have undergone a surgery or are on medications to deal with stroke and wondering what’s next, then, rehabilitation is one of the effective ways to help you improve cognitive and physical function. However, in some cases, you might be recommended home care with a few visits to rehab centres. So if your doctor has advised regular visits to rehab centres for physiotherapy exercises and occupational therapies, then taking care at home is the next big step. And to help you out, our expert Dr M Udaya Kumar Maiya, Medical Director, Portea Medical shares a few tips that can help caregivers look after a stroke survivor at home. Also read about can you suffer a STROKE without even knowing it?
Rehabilitation centres provide an efficient care option for stroke survivors but a majority of patients and families prefer at-home care. Stroke survivors have a better chance of recovery in the comfort of their home. Thus, it is important that a comprehensive plan for recovery and rehabilitation at home be included for the patient’s benefit. The various types of home healthcare services include the following:

1. Skilled home health care and rehabilitation services: It offers some of the treatment options available in the outpatient rehabilitation setting, and helps them learn in a safe and comfortable home environment.
2. Home modification solutions: These help to make life easier and safer for the survivors. Simple modifications such as handrails on stairs, uncluttered hallways, proper lighting and fall prevention strategies can go a long way to help the survivors.
3. Nonmedical at-home care: These services are available at a cheaper cost than medical home healthcare, to help recovery among the survivors of stroke. It includes counselling and support for the patients. Here’s more on rehabilitation tips for stroke patients.
Caregivers not only help in keeping a tab on doctor’s appointments, medications, rehabilitation visits but also supervise improvement in the patient. they can assist them to work in accordance with the needs of the stroke survivors helping them to recover quickly. Some of the key points include -

• Care coordination and transportation: Caregivers can help patients to keep track of appointments, transportation to and from the healthcare setting, doctor’s office and support group meetings. This reduces the overall anxiety and allows patients and caregivers to focus solely on recovery.
• Supervision during home rehabilitation: They provide regular reminders, encouragement and supervision to help the patient adhere to the rehabilitation program.
• Assistance with day-to-day activities: Caregivers can help clients with daily activities like bathing, grooming, dressing, using the toilet while preserving the dignity of clients at such a challenging time.
• Companionship: They can help combat loneliness and inactivity that may lead to increased risk of post-stroke depression. Here’s everything you should know about stem cell therapy for stroke

Brain scientists at TU Dresden examine brain networks during short-term task learning

But does incorrect practice make perfection faster? Don't researchers read research at all?

Practice makes perfect — or does it?

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=169659&CultureCode=en

6 Technische Universitaet Dresden

“Practice makes perfect” is a common saying. We all have experienced that the initially effortful implementation of novel tasks is becoming rapidly easier and more fluent after only a few repetitions. This works especially efficient when we are guided by explicit instructions. A team of researchers at TU Dresden has now examined the underlying neural processes in a current imaging study. The results of the study are published today in the prestigious scientific journal “Nature Communications” under the title „Integration and segregation of large-scale brain networks during short-term task automatization”.
Within the collaborative research center 940 ‘volition and cognitive control’ sponsored by the DFG (German Science Foundation), the brain scientists Holger Mohr, Uta Wolfensteller, and Hannes Ruge from the Department of Psychology at Technische Universität Dresden (Germany) in collaboration with colleagues from the USA and Switzerland examined the neural processes responsible for the automatization of instruction-based tasks. Their research approach embraced the currently popular assumption that mental functions like memory or language do emerge from specific patterns of communication within and between subnetworks of the brain. Going beyond this basic assumption, it was examined whether a rapid reorganization of these communication patterns is possible – specifically during the rapid instruction-based automatization of novel tasks. Previous studies in this context mainly focused on long-term changes.
The results of this current study suggest that rapid instruction-based task automatization is facilitated by rapidly increasing communication between subnetworks associated with the transformation of visual information into motor responses. At the same time, this is accompanied by a release of network resources initially serving the controlled and attention-demanding implementation of the instructed task – while the so-called default mode network is increasingly decoupled from task-related networks. Together, these findings suggest that rapid instruction-based task automatization is indeed reflected by a rapid system-level reorganization of network communications distributed across the entire brain.
Please find the complete paper at: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13217
https://tu-dresden.de/mn/psychologie/allgpsy/die-professur/mitarbeiter/utawolfensteller/agneuro

Attached files

• Increasing communication between the cingulo-opercular network and the dorsal attention network (left side), and decoupling of the default mode network from the cingulo-opercular network (right side) during short practice phases.
  

  ---

• Full bibliographic information"Integration and segregation of large-scale brain networks during short-term task automatization",
  Holger Mohr, Uta Wolfensteller, Richard F. Betzel, Bratislav Mišić, Olaf Sporns, Jonas Richiardi & Hannes Ruge
  Nature Communications 7, Article number: 13217 (2016) doi:10.1038/ncomms13217
  http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13217

Blood Pressure May Open Door to Personalized Medicine for PTSD

You'll have to tell your doctor about this if you got PTSD from your stroke, because I bet s/he is not reading Biological Psychiatry.

23% chance of stroke survivors getting PTSD.

The latest here:

Blood Pressure May Open Door to Personalized Medicine for PTSD

Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry
Treatment with the drug prazosin effectively reduces symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for many people, but about one third of patients don't respond to the treatment at all. Attempts to understand why people respond differently, based on symptom type or severity, have fallen short. Now, a new study reports that soldiers with higher blood pressure before beginning prazosin treatment see better results from the medication. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry, is the first to look for a biological marker that could be used to predict individual response to a drug treatment for combat PTSD.

"These findings suggest that higher standing blood pressure is a biomarker that can contribute to a personalized medicine approach to identifying soldiers and veterans with combat PTSD likely to benefit from prazosin," said Murray Raskind of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the study.

A biomarker such as blood pressure would have exceptional clinical utility because it would provide an easily measureable and immediate predictor of treatment response that could help doctors determine the role of prazosin or a similar medication in the treatment strategy for an individual.

Prazosin blocks α1-adrenergic receptors (α1AR), and through this mechanism prevents some of the effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline, chemicals released by the body during stress. "It would make sense if prazosin was most effective in those patients with the greatest activation of noradrenaline systems," said John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

However, activity of α1AR cannot be measured directly in humans. So the researchers identified a peripheral biological marker that is regulated by α1AR activity; noradrenaline stimulation of α1AR increases blood pressure, suggesting that blood pressure may be a useful indicator of α1AR activity.

The researchers analyzed the combat PTSD symptoms and blood pressure measures collected previously as part of a randomized controlled trial of 67 soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirty-two participants had received prazosin, and 35 had received placebo for 15 weeks.

"Pretreatment standing systolic blood pressure strongly predicted response to prazosin," said Raskind. By the end of the 15 week treatment period, participants with a higher initial blood pressure saw a bigger improvement in their PTSD symptoms, with a better outcome for every 10 mmHg increment above 110 mmHg.

In addition to suggesting that blood pressure may help predict which soldiers with PTSD will benefit the most from treatment, the findings also provide insight into the pathophysiology of the disorder.

"The increase in blood pressure in these PTSD patients may be a biomarker for patients who are more likely to benefit from prazosin," said Krystal. "If so, it may be a useful indicator of activation of noradrenergic activation associated with PTSD in these patients."
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(16)32278-8/abstract

• Full bibliographic informationThe article is "Higher Pretreatment Blood Pressure Is Associated With Greater Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Reduction in Soldiers Treated With Prazosin," by Murray A. Raskind, Steven P. Millard, Eric C. Petrie, Kris Peterson, Tammy Williams, David J. Hoff, Kimberly Hart, Hollie Holmes, Jeffrey Hill, Colin Daniels, Rebecca Hendrickson, and Elaine R. Peskind (doi: 10..1016/j.biopsych.2016.03.2108). It appears in Biological Psychiatry, volume 80, issue 10 (2016), published by Elsevier.

Stem cell therapy appears to have traumatic brain injury treatment effect

I bet there will never be  a followup, testing this in stroke survivors. We have NO stroke leadership or strategy. Until we get rid of all the incompetency in stroke will we actually start improving stroke results. A hell of a lot of people need to get fired, including everybody at your local stroke hospital.
Once again we need to have war effects to improve medical treatment.
http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2016-11-stem-cell-therapy-traumatic-brain.html

Results of a cellular therapy clinical trial for traumatic brain injury (TBI) using a patient's own stem cells showed that the therapy appears to dampen the body's neuroinflammatory response to trauma and preserve brain tissue, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

The results, which also confirmed safety and feasibility as cited in earlier studies, were published online Nov. 1 in the journal Stem Cells.
"The data derived from this trial moves beyond just testing safety of this approach," said Charles S. Cox, Jr., M.D., principal investigator, the George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Neurosciences at UTHealth, professor in the Department of Pediatric Surgery and co-director of the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute. "We now have a hint of a treatment effect that mirrors our pre-clinical work, and we are now pursuing this approach in a Phase 2b clinical trial sponsored by the Joint Warfighter Program within the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, as well as our ongoing Phase 2b pediatric severe TBI clinical trial - both using the same autologous cell therapy."
Cox was recently awarded $6.8 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for the Phase 2b study to assess the safety and efficacy - including whether there are structural improvements in the brain - of autologous stem cell therapy in adults with emergent traumatic brain injury. Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center is the site for the study.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1.7 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury annually. Of those, 275,000 are hospitalized and 52,000 die. TBI is a contributing factor to a third of all injury-related deaths in the country. According to published research cited in the paper, more than 6.5 million patients are burdened by the physical, cognitive and psychosocial deficits associated with TBI, leading to an economic impact of approximately $60 billion.
There are few current therapies to treat TBI. Critical care teams work to stabilize patients and surgery is sometimes necessary to remove or repair damaged blood vessels or tissue, as well as provide relief from swelling.
To potentially open a new avenue of treatment, Cox has been researching cell therapy for neurological disease in pre-clinical and clinical trials for more than two decades. The new study builds on his previously published research showing that autologous stem cell therapy after TBI is safe and reduces the therapeutic intensity requirements of neurocritical care. The theory is that the stem cells work in the brain to alleviate the body's inflammatory response to the trauma.
Researchers enrolled 25 patients in a dose-escalation format with five controls followed by five patients in each of three different doses followed by five more controls for a total of 25. Bone marrow harvesting, cell processing and re-infusion occurred within 48 hours after injury. Cellular processing was done at The Evelyn H. Griffin Stem Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratory at McGovern Medical School.
Functional and neurocognitive outcomes were measured and correlated with imaging data including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of white brain matter.
According to the authors, despite the treatment group having greater injury severity, there was structural preservation of critical regions of interest that correlated with functional outcomes and key inflammatory cytokines were down-regulated after bone marrow cell infusion.

More information: Treatment of Severe Adult Traumatic Brain Injury Using Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells, Stem Cells, DOI: 10.1002/stem.2538
Provided by: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Meta‐Analysis of Potassium Intake and the Risk of Stroke

This has been known for years. Why the fuck hasn't a protocol been written and disseminated to all doctors and stroke survivors?  I bet nothing is done after this either, incompetence is rampant in stroke.

Daily potassium intake and sodium-to-potassium ratio in the reduction of blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials  July 2015

Effect of high potassium diet on endothelial function  June 2014

Slash Risk of Stroke with More Potassium and Less Salt  June 2013

Why eat three bananas a day?    April 2012

The latest here:

Meta‐Analysis of Potassium Intake and the Risk of Stroke

Marco Vinceti, Tommaso Filippini, Alessio Crippa, Agnès de Sesmaisons, Lauren A. Wise and Nicola Orsini

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.116.004210

Journal of the American Heart Association. 2016;5:e004210

Originally published October 6, 2016

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Abstract

Background The possibility that lifestyle factors such as diet, specifically potassium intake, may modify the risk of stroke has been suggested by several observational cohort studies, including some recent reports. We performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis of existing studies and assessed the dose–response relation between potassium intake and stroke risk.

Methods and Results We reviewed the observational cohort studies addressing the relation between potassium intake, and incidence or mortality of total stroke or stroke subtypes published through August 6, 2016. We carried out a meta‐analysis of 16 cohort studies based on the relative risk (RR) of stroke comparing the highest versus lowest intake categories. We also plotted a pooled dose–response curve of RR of stroke according to potassium intake. Analyses were performed with and without adjustment for blood pressure. Relative to the lowest category of potassium intake, the highest category of potassium intake was associated with a 13% reduced risk of stroke (RR=0.87, 95% CI 0.80–0.94) in the blood pressure–adjusted analysis. Summary RRs tended to decrease when original estimates were unadjusted for blood pressure. Analysis for stroke subtypes yielded comparable results. In the spline analysis, the pooled RR was lowest at 90 mmol of potassium daily intake (RRs=0.78, 95% CI 0.70–0.86) in blood pressure–adjusted analysis, and 0.67 (95% CI 0.57–0.78) in unadjusted analysis.

Conclusions Overall, this dose–response meta‐analysis confirms the inverse association between potassium intake and stroke risk, with potassium intake of 90 mmol (≈3500 mg)/day associated with the lowest risk of stroke.

Understanding the protective effects of wine components and their metabolites in the brain function

They don't seem to have considered that only certain people can process alcohol healthily.

Moderate Drinking is Healthy Only for Some People

Understanding the protective effects of wine components and their metabolites in the brain function

¹ Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Alimentación (CIAL), CSIC-UAM. Nicolás Cabrera, 9, 28049 Madrid, Spain
² Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus RG6 6AP, Reading, UK

^a e-mail: victoria.moreno@csic.es

Abstract

Moderate wine consumption has been suggested to exert a positive effect in prevention of neurodegenerative process and cognitive impairment. With the ultimate aim of achieving a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind this benefit, we have investigated the role of certain wine- derived phenolic metabolites and aroma compounds in the MAPK cascade (including ERK1/2, p38), one of the routes directly related to inflammation in neuronal cells. Some of the tested phenolic compounds, especially in the case of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, showed a significant neuroprotective effect against SIN-1-induced neuronal death. Regarding their effect over MAPK phosphorylation, inmunoblotting technique revealed a beneficial and significant decrease on the phosphorylation of p38 and ERK1/2 kinases after incubation with wine constituents. In addition, activity of caspase3-like protease, an executor of neuronal apoptosis and a downstream signal of MAPK, was significantly diminished by 3-(3-hydroxyphenyl) propionic acid and linalool, counterbalancing the increase produced by SIN-1. Altogether, these results suggest that wine aroma, phenolic compounds and their gut metabolites could exert neuroprotective actions by modulating MAPK signalling and caspase-3 proteases activation, which are known to play a key role in oxidative/ nitrosative stress-induced response.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

American Stroke Association story writing

Fuck, how much more useless can the ASA get?
Go to StrokeAssociation.org/StrokeWontWait and fill in a few more blanks to create your stroke hero story.

that you are completely on your own to figure out how to do it.

Update on Traumatic Brain Injury and Inflammation

How much of this applies to stroke? We'll never know because we have NO fucking stroke leadership or strategy. All 10 million yearly stroke survivors  are completely individually on our own to solve our stroke problems. Plus the couple hundred million existing stroke survivors No one in the world is helping us. Not our fucking failures of stroke associations. Not our doctors who know absolutely nothing on how to get us 100% recovered. Not our researchers who are following no strategy at all in determining what would best help survivors.

A couple of bucks from each survivor could create some serious money to have researchers solve a lot of the fucking problems in stroke if we had a great stroke association to execute a stroke strategy.

This is so fucking simple that even a stroke-addled person can figure this out. But the boards of directors can't figure out what should be done to solve stroke.

Update on Traumatic Brain Injury and Inflammation

'Experts' meet at Hyderabad for four-day World Stroke Congress

From what I've seem so far there are no 'experts' at the World Stroke Congress, only blithering idiots doing the 'happy talk'. I'd have everyone at the WSO fired for incompetence! They're DOING NOTHING FOR SURVIVORS!

'Experts' meet at Hyderabad for four-day World Stroke Congress

Stroke is devastating. Everyone can have a stroke.  For many people, the stroke happens suddenly and without warning. According to Stroke Association, when it happens, there is a little time to prepare. It can affect how one moves, feels and thinks.

Hyderabad is the host to World Stoke Congress.  Nearly 2200 stroke experts descended on the city to participate in a four-day conference.  The meeting begins just a few days before World Stroke Day, to be observed on October 29 every year.
What is a stroke? According to Dr. Jeyaraj Pandian, Co-Chair of the World Stoke Congress and a top stroke neurologist in India, a stroke is a brain attack.  It happens when the blood supply to part of the brain cuts off.
Blood carries essential nutrients and oxygen to the brain.  Without blood, brain cells can't work because of the damage.  They won't be able to perform their tasks.
The brain is a critical part of the body. It controls the entire body. A stroke can affect the way body functions.
The brain also controls how one thinks, learns, feels and communicates.
The blood flow to the brain can be cut off by two ways—due to Blockage or a Bleeding.  Because of which strokes occur, which are of two types—01. Blockage and 02. Bleeding.
In 85 per cent cases stroke happens by a Blockage and reaming 15 per cent cases by Bleeding.
According to Stroke Association, some of the things that increase the risk of stroke cannot be changed are Gender(in people under 75, Men have more strokes than women); Age(you are more likely to have a stroke if you are over the age of 65). Family History (If a close relative has had an attack, risk is likely to be higher) and Ethnic Background(South Asian or African-Caribbean origin are at an increased risk).
BP, High Cholesterol, Type 2 Diabetes, Atrial Fibrillation(irregular beating of the heart), Heart disease, Smoking are some of the medical problems that can increase a risk of having a stroke.
Smokers are twice as likely to have a stroke, and this risk will increase more with more smoking. Stopping smoking will reduce the danger of a stroke.
Drinking too much alcohol raises blood pressure, which in turn causes a stoke.
The common effects of stroke are weakness or paralysis; speech and language problems, unsteadiness, difficulty with swallowing, suffer from extreme tiredness, may have a problem with sensation and much more such problems.
According to experts at the ongoing World Stroke Congress, many strokes can be prevented.
The food that will help you save from stroke are fresh fruits, vegetables, and dried fruits and avoid junk food. But you don't give us a diet protocol you lazy fucking idiots.
Choose low-fat proteins.  Eat plenty of fiber such as cereals, porridge, brown rice, whole wheat bread and pasta or grains such as couscous.  Cut down on the intake of salt. Watch your weight.
Keep active.  Do exercises. Warm up before and after exercise.  Find someone to exercise with you.
Stroke is the leading cause of disability and the second leading cause of death globally.
Stroke devastates lives around the world.  Over 17 million people around the world suffer a stroke every year and 6.5 million deaths happen.  5 million are permanently disabled.  Nearly 26 million inhabitants survive a stroke??? every year. Doesn't anyone vet your statistics?

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In India alone, 1.7 million new stroke cases occur every year. Stroke affects young people in India during their productive period of life.  The reasons for this are due to unorganized lifestyles and poor food habits. After stroke care significantly reduces the risk of death.
According to Dr, Jayaraj Pandian, the prevalence of the problem is 350 to 400 people per lakh population in India.
In Ludhiana, more youth are getting the stroke. Nearly 23 percent of the youth population is suffering from a stroke. That is due to unhealthy eating habits, stressful life.  Also, it is because today we have more youth population.
Stroke care infrastructure is developed mainly in private hospitals, but the vast majority of public hospitals are ill-equipped to treat stroke patients. The treatment expenses are borne by the patients and relatives and hence there is a huge economic burden on the family. The neighboring countries in South Asia also face a similar problem of a huge burden of stroke with an inadequate infrastructure to tackle the situation stated Dr. Jeyaraj Pandian the Congress Co-Chair from India.
Dr. C. Laxma Reddy, Minister for Health, Government of Telangana, while addressing the inauguration of World Stoke Congress, said TS Govt has established ICUs exclusively for stroke patients in all govt hospitals across Telangana state. We want government hospitals in the state to be stroke-ready hospitals he said.
The right care makes a difference, but many people are not getting the stroke treatment they need. According to World Stroke Campaign by the World Stroke Organisation, there are six key facts about stroke treatment
1.Early recognition makes a big difference.  Knowing the signs of stroke and getting treatment saves lives and improves recovery.
2.  1 in 10 people makes an excellent recovery when cared for in a specialized stroke unit.
90% failure of full recovery is totally appalling, and nothing about the 10% has anything to do with the specialized stroke unit.
3. Clot-busting drugs (tPA or thrombolysis) increase the chance of a good outcome by  30%.
But tPA only fully works 12% of the time. Don't promote that as a good outcome, that is complete failure. Clot-busting drugs break up blood clots. This treatment can be administered up to 4.5 hours of symptom onset in many patients with ischaemic stroke. The earlier it is given, the greater the effect.
4. Clot retrieval treatment increases the chance of a good outcome by more than 50%.  Clot retrieval treatment (mechanical thrombectomy) involves removing a blood clot  and can improve survival rates and reduce disability
5. Recovery is a critical step in the treatment process. Rehabilitation starts in the hospital as soon as possible following a stroke.
6. One in four survivors will have another stroke. Treatments that prevent another stroke include drugs to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, antiplatelet therapies, anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation, surgery or stenting for selected patients with severe carotid artery narrowing.
Lifestyle changes can also substantially reduce the risk of another stroke. Changes include eating well, being physically active, being tobacco-free, managing stress, and limiting alcohol consumption.
Stroke is treatable(Bullshit, quit lying!).  One must gain more awareness to save from devastating stroke effect.

Source:

http://www.world-stroke.org/