Tag: "epileptic" at biology news

Gene variations explain drug dose required to control seizures

...nsport of one or both anti-epileptic drugs. In 425 epileptic patients taking carbamazepine and 281 taking phenytoin, the researchers then searched for an association between clinical use of the drugs and variation in the candidate genes. One variant of a gene known as CYP2C9, which encodes a liver enzyme invo...

A vaccine to kill tapeworm

...e confused, suffer difficulty with balance or have epileptic seizures. Heavy infections can kill, often as a result of inflammation after the parasites die. The parasite has been virtually eliminated in developed countries, but even in the US there are around 1000 cases each year, mainly among immigrants. In c...

Penn study finds direct role for glial cells in brain cross-talk

...elucidate mechanisms of wake-sleep transitions and epileptic seizures Researchers at the University of Pennsyl...rtant in controlling wake-to-sleep transitions and epileptic seizures. "This finding may cause neuroscientists to radically alter their view of the role of astr...

Septum keeps neurons in synch, can reduce epileptic seizures by 90 percent

The brain's septum helps prevent epileptic seizures by inducing rhythmical electrical activit...by imposing a normal "theta" rhythm on chronically epileptic rats, they could reduce epileptic seizures by 86-97 percent. The study "Septo-hippocampal networks ...

New neurons could act to alleviate epilepsy

...udies in rats examining neurons generated after an epileptic event has been triggered in the animals. In the... by running on a wheel with those in rats in which epileptic seizures were induced by electrical brain stimulation. Specifically, the researchers analyzed the el...

Teenager moves video icons just by imagination

... the area in the brain serving as the focus for an epileptic seizure, with hopes of removing it to avoid future seizures. To do this, the boy and his doctors, Dr Mathew Smyth and Dr John Zempel, had to wait for a seizure. Usin' the noggin With approval of the patient and his parents and the Washington Un...

Gene therapy inhibits epilepsy in animals

...they could significantly reduce the development of epileptic seizures in rats. "We have shown that there is a window to intervene after a brain insult to reduce the risk that epilepsy will develop," said one of the lead researchers, Amy R. Brooks-Kayal, M.D., a pediatric neurologist at The Children's Hospita...

Brain works more chaotically than previously thought

...that in the event of oxygen deficiency or a severe epileptic fit, large numbers of insulating cells in the whit...y can glutamate sometimes be so dangerous? When an epileptic fit occurs, the nerve cells "fire" very rapidly and fiercely. In this event so many impulses run thr...

Rare cell prevents rampant brain activity

...only on exceptional occasions, when it can lead to epileptic fits. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now uncovered a new mechanism controlling how the brain keeps its neuronal activity in check. The human brain consists of around a hundred million nerve cells linked together by around ten billion cont...

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