Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) News and Research
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses a large magnet and radio waves to look at organs and structures inside your body. Health care professionals use MRI scans to diagnose a variety of conditions, from torn ligaments to tumors. MRIs are very useful for examining the brain and spinal cord. Also called: Magnetic resonance imaging, NMR, Nuclear magnetic resonance.
What is the Role of Magnets in Medicine?
First imaging-based diagnostic test for living Alzheimer's
Mayo Clinic researchers have devised a way to produce enhanced MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) pictures of the destructive brain lesions that cause Alzheimer's disease. This advance using laboratory mice lays the foundation for the first imaging-based diagnostic test for living Alzheimer's disease patients.
Serono says Rebif an effective treatment for brain lesions
New long-term data support the importance of early treatment with high dose, high frequency Rebif® (interferon beta-1a) 44 mcg in reducing the long-term accumulation of brain lesion volume in patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS).
Researchers show that language "center" of brain shifts with age
Along with left- or right-handedness, the hemisphere of the brain where language capacity resides is likely predetermined. Researchers have now shown that with age, language capacity in the brain becomes more evenly distributed between hemispheres.
Cognitive Neuroscientists Reveal Creative Brain Processes
Think Isaac Newton getting hit on the head with an apple or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone. While these creative or "Aha!" moments often are associated with scientific discoveries and inventions, most people occasionally feel the thrill of insight when a solution that had eluded them suddenly becomes obvious.
Researchers use MRI to capture the intricacies of speech
A team of University of Southern California researchers has brought cutting-edge imaging tools to the study of human speech, capturing the clearest moving images of the rapid vocal movements that turn sound to language.
Study reveals brain function of poor readers can improve
A brain imaging study has shown that, after they overcome their reading disability, the brains of formerly poor readers begin to function like the brains of good readers, showing increased activity in a part of the brain that recognizes words.
New scanning technology allows researchers to look into a kidney
Kidney disease may affect as many as one in twelve people, and causes millions of deaths each year. Currently, the diagnosis of kidney function relies mainly on blood and urine tests, an indirect means of figuring out how well they're working.
Researchers examine community-based drinkers rather than abstinent alcoholics
Almost all knowledge about brain damage due to chronic alcohol consumption has been gathered from alcoholics, who have generally been studied toward the end of their institutionalized treatment program (several weeks after their last drink) or many months into abstinence.
New process to extract proteins from membranes by using chemicals
Proteins are complex compounds that are essential for the growth and repair of tissue. While scientists understand much about the structure and stability of water-soluble proteins that 'float' around in humans, they know very little about the shape and stability of proteins that are embedded, or folded, into the lipid membrane of cells. Such membrane proteins make up about 30 percent of all proteins in the body.
Research shows giving Tourette Syndrome patients the drug levodopa normalizes brain activity
Scientists have known for years that abnormal activity involving a brain chemical called dopamine is somehow connected to the movements and vocalizations, or tics, associated with Tourette syndrome. Now neuroscience researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found brain activity in these patients is abnormal during memory tasks, as well.
New MRI Liver Contrast Agent Primovist(TM) Approved in Sweden
Schering AG Group, Germany has announced that the Swedish health authority MPA has granted marketing approval for its innovative liver imaging product Primovist(TM) (gadoxetic acid disodium). Primovist(TM) is designed for the detection and characterization of liver lesions by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) including liver tumors, metastases as well as other malignant and benign lesions.
MIT scientists are reporting new insights into how the human brain recognizes objects
MIT scientists are reporting new insights into how the human brain recognizes objects, especially faces, in work that could lead to improved machine vision systems, diagnostics for certain neurological conditions and more.
New treatment for Tourette Syndrome, patients experience significant resolution of symptoms following brain surgery
A neurosurgical team at University Hospitals of Cleveland (UHC) has, for the first time in North America, applied a new surgical approach to the treatment of Tourette syndrome, resulting in the immediate and nearly complete resolution of symptoms for the patient, who has suffered from this neurologic disorder since he was a child.
Discovery of new gene sheds light on human brain development
With the identification of the gene responsible for a newly recognized type of mental retardation, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have also discovered what appears to be the key target in the evolution of the frontal lobes of the brain's cerebral cortex. The findings offer a key insight into the complex puzzle of human brain development - and the evolution of human behavior.
Cladribine Targeted to Become First Oral Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis
Serono and IVAX Corporation has announced positive results from two clinical trials with a new proprietary oral formulation of cladribine, a potential new treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). The study results showed that the formulation of oral cladribine which has been developed by Serono and IVAX has met the targets for an orally administered product, with blood levels of cladribine in the expected therapeutic range. Efficacy studies of oral cladribine in MS patients are planned to start late 2004.
New therapy for multiple sclerosis sufferers
Serono and IVAX Corporation have announced positive results from two clinical trials with a new proprietary oral formulation of cladribine, a potential new treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS).
The placebo effect, study suggest pain management is possible
A Columbia professor has uncovered fresh evidence of the existence of the often-debated placebo effect. Even the professor himself, Tor D. Wager, of the Department of Psychology, was surprised by his team's findings. The study showed that the human brain processes pain differently when people believe that they have been given a pain-relieving skin cream. Wager, lead author of the study, defines "placebo" as a treatment that has no direct pharmacological effect and that may influence one's experience and physiology through one's beliefs.
£76 million research centre to make the UK a global centre of excellence for clinical imaging
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Imperial College London today announce a unique research collaboration in medical imaging. GSK will contribute funding of £28m for the construction of a new Clinical Imaging Centre, next to Hammersmith Hospital in West London, UK. Research will focus on cancer, stroke, neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis and psychiatric diseases. In association with the Clinical Imaging Centre, GSK and Imperial have entered into a 10-year research agreement for medical imaging.
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