#motor-neurone-disease

#motor-neurone-disease

Elizabeth Roboz Einstein's journey began on May 15, 1940, when she boarded the Conte di Savoia, an Italian steamliner, leaving behind her family in Hungary as World War II escalated. This voyage was not a luxury cruise but a desperate evacuation for many, including 600 Central European refugees fleeing the advancing German troops.

Oli's mom, Lindsay Dagan, described the severity of his condition, stating, 'We were in the hospital every week with seizures. His seizures wouldn't stop on their own, so we'd have to give rescue meds, often multiple doses that still wouldn't stop the seizure.'

When Lorraine Kelly Donnelly felt a cramp in her left hand at the start of 2025, she didn't think anything of it. But when a week later the pain was still there, she made an appointment to see her GP.

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second-most-common neurodegenerative cause of dementia, after Alzheimer's Disease. But it's the most-common cause that doesn't receive sufficient attention.

The condition, called recessive RNU2-2-related neurodevelopmental disorder, is associated with seizures and severe developmental delay in children less than a year-old, in areas such as speech and walking.

Artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning is making a difference in assistive technology to help restore movement for the paralyzed. A new study in the American Institute of Physics journal APL Bioengineering shows how AI has the potential to restore lower-limb functions in those with severe spinal cord injuries (SCIs) by identifying patterns in brain signals captured noninvasively via electroencephalography (EEG).

The human brain is complex. Artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning and medical imaging data are accelerating breakthroughs in brain health, especially in medical diagnostics. A peer-reviewed study published today in Nature Neuroscience unveils an AI foundation model called BrainIAC (Brain Imaging Adaptive Core) that is capable of predicting brain age, dementia, time-to-stroke, and brain cancer from brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

A groundbreaking study found that adults who sit for 10 or more hours daily face a significantly higher risk of dementia compared to those who sit less. The research, which tracked over 50,000 adults using wearable devices, revealed that the risk increases dramatically after crossing that 10-hour threshold.

Most people will forget a name, misplace their phone, or lose track of a conversation at some point. Usually, those moments pass without much thought. But for many adults, especially as they age, small lapses can trigger a much deeper fear: Is this the beginning of cognitive decline? As a neurologist, I hear this concern often. And as a researcher, I have learned something important: Worry about cognition and cognitive disease are not the same thing.

Mark McNamee said, 'I still can't get my head around it. For just a simple ear infection to basically, it's nearly destroyed your life for you.'

Sometimes it's a fall that brings a broken hip and a loss of mobility. Or memory problems that bubble into danger. Or the death of the partner who was relied upon for care.The need to move to a nursing home, assisted living facility or another type of care setting often comes suddenly, setting off an abrupt, daunting search. It's likely something no one ever wanted, but knowing what to look for and what to ask can make a big difference.

When mitochondria are exposed to tissue or blood, they lose the electrical gradient across their outer membrane. Mitochondria that lack such a gradient are recognized by a cell's internal machinery as damaged and quickly destroyed. The vast majority of previous studies involved injecting 'naked' mitochondria directly into the bloodstream or tissue sites, but the approach isn't very efficient, so researchers often have to use 'ridiculous' doses of mitochondria.

For years, scientists have viewed cancer as a localized glitch in which cells refuse to stop dividing. But a new study suggests that, in certain organs, tumors actively communicate with the brain to trick it into protecting them. Scientists have long known that nerves grow into some tumors and that tumors containing lots of nerves usually lead to a worse prognosis.

It's easy to feel hopeless when someone has Alzheimer's, and to think that small interventions won't make a difference. That's understandable - and thankfully not true. "This symptom can be effectively treated with behavioral interventions as well as medication, which is FDA-approved for the treatment of agitation in Alzheimer's disease," Palekar said. To get to that point, he recommended discussing any agitation-like symptoms with the patient's medical provider.

Northwestern University has launched the Simpson Querrey Brain Health Institute (SQ-Brain), made possible by nearly $25 million in philanthropic funding from university trustee Kimberly K. Querrey ('22, '23 P). SQ-Brain envisions a future where our brains last as long as our bodies a world where brain health is continuously measurable, modifiable and monitorable across the lifespan, and where prevention of cognitive decline and brain injury is anchored in neurovascular biology and precision medicine.

But questions remain about the accuracy and uncertainty of these tests, and experts caution that the assays aren't ready for prime time. While the results here are encouraging, they are not yet at the level of having significant clinical benefit for individual patients, says Corey Bolton, a clinical neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study.

For families living with neurodegenerative disease, the hardest part is not always the diagnosis. It is the slow erosion that follows: memory fading, personality shifting, independence shrinking. It unfolds quietly. First, forgotten appointments. Then repeated questions. Then moments when a familiar face no longer feels familiar. The illness does not isolate itself to one body. It rearranges the lives around it.