By Allison Ganey -- cited from Medscape

March 24, 2011 — Stroke patients receiving electrical brain stimulation with swallowing exercises improved more than 2.5 points on a 7-point scale, report researchers.

The noninvasive technique, known as transcranial direct-current stimulation, uses a weak electrical current transmitted by electrodes placed on the scalp.

"Because brain stem swallowing centers have bilateral cortical innervations, measures that enhance cortical input and sensorimotor control of brain stem swallowing may be beneficial for dysphagia recovery," explain the investigators, led by Sandeep Kumar, MD, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

"This is an innovative, futuristic approach," Ralph Sacco, MD, from the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, in Florida, told Medscape Medical News.

The new pilot study showed swallowing ability improved in 86% of patients receiving stimulation and in 43% of those who did not. Although these percentages showed a trend toward improvement, they did not reach statistical significance.

The results are published online March 24 and will appear in the April issue of Stroke.

Scientist’s claim of inventing a “thinking cap” turns heads and stirs controversy

By: Tina Knezevic (published in The Varsity 3/15/11)

It seems that scientists have known about the differences between the left and right sides of our brains forever. In fact, hemispheric specialization — the idea that each side of our brain is more suited to different functions — was first discovered in the 1960s by Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry. Since then, the popular media has characterized the left hemisphere as our “wise” and analytical side, favouring logic and past experience in decision making. The right — our imaginative side — is less afraid of taking risks, and prefers symbols and images as opposed to facts.

Using these broad distinctions, there’s little doubt that throughout development, children are encouraged to do the type of thinking that occurs on the left side. PhD student Richard Chi and his supervisor, Allan Snyder, from the University of Sydney have been fascinated with the categorical functions of each side of the brain for years. Considering the fact that accident victims who spontaneously experience inhibition to the left side of their brain can develop surprisingly new artistic abilities, they continued to wonder: what if there was a way to deliberately stimulate or inhibit parts of the brain?

This is exactly what Snyder and Chi did. They used a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) — a fancy way of saying that they switched different sides of the brain “on” or “off.” In their study, 60 participants were presented with the same “matchstick arithmetic” problems, requiring them to rearrange matches in the form of Roman numerals to create mathematically true statements.

Published on www.nhs.uk (March 4, 2011)

A brain chemical called GABA is the reason why “some people dance like Fred Astaire – while others have the natural rhythm of Ann Widdecombe”, the Daily Mail has reported.

The news is based on a study involving 12 healthy young adults who had their brains stimulated with electrodes to alter levels of GABA, one of the main chemicals regulating the transmission of electrical impulses in the brain. The subjects’ brain activity and reaction speed were then tested while they learned a task involving pressing buttons in response to visual cues, with the researchers looking at how performance related to normal and altered GABA levels.

Though of scientific interest, this experimental scenario was carried out in very few people and has only limited direct implications. The study only assessed each individual’s ability in one test of time reaction, and the results cannot be applied to other types of movement, including dance. The findings would also require replication in much larger numbers of people, with different tests of movement, before GABA could be considered to be responsible for our capacity to learn movement.

The study was carried out by researchers from the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), at the University of Oxford, and was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford. The study was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Current Biology.