Neurology Diagnostics

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It is an “invisible injury” but no less painful. Besides the loss of one of our five senses, hearing loss also implies serious difficulties for us to interact and understand others.

This condition in our listening skills increases with age and can become irreversible. But with the noise pollution today, young people are at high risk: high music to expose their ears is one reason why your hearing is increasingly damaged.

To protect the health of your ears, heed the following advice.

Avoid loud noises. Whenever you can, tries to get away from them. Close your car windows when driving, do not stand next to the speakers at a concert or in clubs and out for lunch in those restaurants where you can converse without raising your voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Hormonal disorders, poor nutrition, certain medications and stress are some of the reasons they do lose their hair.

Often there is no reason for concern, only call if you fall 100 or more hairs per day.

Why is hair loss?

The mechanical reason is for example the hairstyle. Ponytails for example cause the hair to press too hard. In these cases just a simple change in hairstyle.

When the hair falls out during or after a disease is often due to high body temperature, as well as toxic factors and nutritional deficiencies. Hair loss usually occurs within two to four months after the fever goes away and returns to grow at their own pace.

Systemic diseases can also cause baldness, such as lupus, hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism. The treatment for hair loss in these cases is strictly connected to the treatment of disease.

Baldness can also be generated as the immunosuppressive drug used in cancer treatment in dermatology or against some cases of psoriasis or systemic connective tissue diseases among others. Hair loss begins around the third week after administering the drug. When you stop taking the medicine, the hair grows back. Read the rest of this entry »

The finding allows us to understand how memories are stored and how they change over time.

One study suggests that it is possible to identify the specific memory that a person is recovering from last episode, only on the pattern of brain activity. The results of work carried out by University College London, UK, published in the online edition of the journal Current Biology.

Explains Eleanor Maguire, head of the study, “we have observed brain activity in search of a specific episodic memory, and examine the trace of real memory. We found that our memories are represented permanently in the hippocampus. Now we’ve seen where they are we have a chance to understand how memories are stored and how they might change over time. “

The results are a continuation of an earlier discovery of the scientific team, which showed that one could identify where he was a person inside a virtual reality room in the same way.

The researchers showed ten people one of three very short films before a brain scan. Each film was played by a different actress and a daily scenario quite similar. For example, in one of the shorter a woman looking in her purse to find an envelope in a mailbox and threw in another one of them a different actress ended her coffee cup and threw in a trash empty.

The scientists scanned the brains of participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while calling on those who remember the movie, and then included the image data in a computer log designed to identify patterns of brain activity, memories associated with every film.

Finally, the authors showed that these patterns could be identified in separate fMRI data to predict exactly what movie I was thinking about a particular person when he passed through the scanner. Read the rest of this entry »

Some are very handsome, others not so and there’s plenty. But they all have one thing in common: when they look in the mirror, the image that it brings back is of someone ugly and deformed. They are people with body dimorphic disorder, a psychiatric condition that affects an estimated 1% to 2% of the population. A study just to verify that the brains of these individuals react differently to the contemplation of his own face.

Examples of images used in the study. (Photo: Archives of General Psychiatry) Know exactly what happens in the minds of those who suffer the condition is vital to help them move forward and leave behind the anxiety generated by their appearance. Many are unable to lead a normal, half requiring hospitalization at some point in their lives and about 25% attempt suicide.

Research published in the latest issue of Archives of General Psychiatry compared the brain areas were activated in 17 affected and 16 other healthy while viewing a photograph of themselves and another for a famous actor.

To tune a bit more on analysis of visual processing, scientists, University of California (United States) – Digital images were shown in three different resolutions: standard, in a format that highlights the details (spots, profile of the nose and eyes, hair) or a configuration in which only perceived the spatial relationship between different parts of the face and shape of it.

The medical imaging technique used was the fMRI, which allows observing in real time what brain areas are activated by performing a particular activity.

When individuals with body dimorphic disorder looked at his face, there was a hyper activation of brain structures related to the specific visual processing. This does not happen if they looked the picture of famous actor and healthy people do not happen or your own image or that of the celebrities. Read the rest of this entry »

The erratic thinking is honored to be responsible for major discoveries like the law of gravity of Newton. All of us have ever experienced the benefits of letting our minds wander: the word on the tip of the tongue, where we left the screwdriver, the name of an old friend … But the price we pay for thinking instead of focusing on what we are doing could be high. Nothing less than happiness.

The brain is a kind of ‘super computer’, complex operation, which we know only a small part. We know it has conscious and unconscious activity, both of equal importance as they allow complex actions simultaneously and seamlessly, and is capable of thinking about the dinner menu while we attend a work call, a real evolution.

This ability to digression seems to be the default operating mode of the brain “, explained Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University (Cambridge, USA), in the pages of the journal Science. Without it, certain situations would be terribly boring, like driving for hours, sunbathing or jogging. But it appears that “abuse” a little of this resource. Read the rest of this entry »

The resoncia shows the modulation of brain activity of illiterates and literacy process.

A group of researchers identified brain regions modulated literacy, located where the expertise lies in the vocabulary and visual recognition.

The scientists conducted experiments to locate the footprint of learning to read and write public so the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

For this research were used functional MRI techniques in the brains of 63 volunteers Brazilian and Portuguese: 11 illiterate adults literate and 22 and 31 who learned to read and write for children.

The study found that literacy improves the function of speech, but do not yet know whether these changes in brain anatomy, decrease or no capacity, for example, to recognize faces.

Stanislas Dehaene researcher at the University of Paris-Sud and a group of leading scientists in their research published in the journal Science, which not only differences were found in the brain between the illiterate and literate, but also differences in those who learned adults. Read the rest of this entry »

The use of MRI has uncovered three distinct patterns of brain activity in autism.

A group of researchers at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven (USA) has identified a pattern of brain activity that may characterize genetic vulnerability associated with the development of autism spectrum disorders. The results of their work, which was coordinated by Kevin A. Pelphrey, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By using MRI, the authors have analyzed the brains of autistic children and siblings of those affected do not have the disease. The analysis was done as they watched animations that mimic the biological motion. Compared with the control group, Pelphrey and his team observed three distinct neural signatures.

Offset the risk

The first refers to a reduced brain activity in regions that autistic children and siblings had in common and that explains the brain disrrupciones to the disease. The second is a similarly reduced activity in regions linked only to the affected children, which provides neuroendofenotipos linked to genomic complexity and heterogeneity of the disease. The third point to increased activity in areas related only unaffected siblings. Read the rest of this entry »

Promoted by the World Stroke Organization (WSO) has launched a campaign slogan that 1 in 6 for 2 years (2010-2012) aims to disseminate information to save lives and share knowledge about actions and behaviors life that may prevent a stroke. This is the main cause of disability worldwide. The campaign also highlights the critical importance of providing quality care and long term support after suffering it.

The motto under which celebrates this year is 1 in 6, then every six seconds someone dies of a stroke or brain attack, regardless of age or sex. In the 5th. Stroke World Congress, held on June 24, 2004 in Vancouver, Canada, was established on 29 October as World Day ictus.

We call for urgent action to this silent epidemic of stroke, through the campaign 1 in 6. This time, the campaign led by the World Organization for stroke, is proposed to reduce the burden of this epidemic by acting on six aspects:

1. Know your personal risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol.
2. Be physically active and exercise regularly.
3. Avoid obesity through a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and low in fat.
4. Limit alcohol consumption.
5. Avoid cigarette smoking. If you smoke, get help to quit now.
6. Learn to recognize the warning symptoms of stroke and how to proceed if they occur. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning signs. If you have any of the following symptoms with a sudden onset:

- Loss of strength in the face, arm or leg on one side of the body.
- Disorders of sensation, feeling “tingling” of the face, arm or leg on one side of the body.
- Sudden loss of vision, partial or total, in one or both eyes.
- Slurred speech, difficulty in speaking, it costs us to articulate and be understood by those who hear us.
- Feelings of extreme dizziness, unsteadiness, imbalance or sudden unexplained falls, together with any of the symptoms described above.
- Headache of sudden onset, intensity unusual and unexplained.

You can have a stroke and its consequences can be death or disabling sequel do so dependent on another person or caregiver.

What should you do?

1. Tell a relative, friend or neighbor to join you
2. Rushed to the hospital or call the Integrated System of Emergency.

What Not To Do

- Wait until it passes
- Aspirin
- Do not tell anyone not to bother
- Warn your family doctor to come to your house to visit when you can

Do not waste time, every minute counts

A doctor specializing in diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system, which affects the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles.

Diseases is a neurologist
The most common neurological diseases are migraine and other headaches, memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, sleep disorders, Parkinson’s disease and tremor, gait disorders, epilepsy and unconscious, the pains and neuralgia, muscle weakness and neurological impact of general diseases, stress and depression.

Diagnostic tools which employs
The most important diagnostic tool is the history, during which the patient exhibits symptoms, allowing deduction of injured nervous system. The fundus examination of the cranial nerves, gait and station, reflections, sensitivities and cerebellum to confirm the injury. Finally, if necessary, use additional powerful diagnostic tools to confirm the clinical impression, such as brain MRI, Angio-Reosnancia the brain, and EEG mapping studies, electromyographic studies and conduction velocity, genetic studies , etc.

Treatments that are used
Neurological treatments are usually pharmacological, ie with drugs. On special occasions it is necessary to resort to physical therapy and other physical therapy or psychotherapy that is administered by psychologists and physiotherapists. Generally, medications are prescribed for three to six months and after this time is often convenient to make a review to monitor the effects of treatments. Read the rest of this entry »