In a press release last week, UCLA said that a new “rat study” is the first research to demonstrate that “a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption.”

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992.aspx

The Journal of Physiology published the findings last Tuesday.

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. “Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage.”

Although prior studies has showed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, the UCLA research is the first to demonstrate how such sugar influences the brain.

“Sources of fructose in the Western diet include cane sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid sweetener,” UCLA said in its release. “The syrup is widely added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes roughly 47 pounds of cane sugar and 35 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”

The researcher said that sugar in fruit doesn’t have him worried.

“We’re less concerned about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants,” said Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. “We’re more concerned about the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, which is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative.”

Gomez-Pinilla and research co-author Rahul Agrawal, a UCLA visiting postdoctoral fellow from India, studied two groups of rats that each consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for six weeks. The second group also received omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flax seed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which protects against damage to the synapses — the chemical connections between brain cells that enable memory and learning.

“DHA is essential for synaptic function — brain cells’ ability to transmit signals to one another,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “This is the mechanism that makes learning and memory possible. Our bodies can’t produce enough DHA, so it must be supplemented through our diet.”

The rat were give standard food and trained on a maze twice daily for five days before starting the experimental diet.

“The UCLA team tested how well the rats were able to navigate the maze, which contained numerous holes but only one exit,” the press release said. “The scientists placed visual landmarks in the maze to help the rats learn and remember the way.”

The researchers tested the rats’ ability to recall the route and escape the maze six weeks late.

“The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier.”

According to UCLA, the DHA-deprived rats also developed signs of resistance to insulin, which controls blood sugar and regulates synaptic function in the brain. A closer look at the rats’ brain tissue suggested that insulin had lost much of its power to influence the brain cells.

“Because insulin can penetrate the blood–brain barrier, the hormone may signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and cause memory loss,” Gomez-Pinilla said.

The research believes that fructose caused the DHA-deficient rats’ brain dysfunction. Eating too much fructose could block insulin’s ability to regulate how cells use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts and emotions.

“Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain, where insulin appears to disturb memory and learning,” he said. “Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new.”

Gomez-Pinilla’s advice to humans is keep fructose intake to a minimum, and to eat fresh berries and Greek yogurt instead of the usual desserts, such as hot-fudge sundaes.
sweetener is fine too, he said.

For those who won’t give up their sweets, the researcher advises that they eat food with omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, walnuts and flax seeds, or take a daily DHA capsule. Gomez-Pinilla recommends one gram of DHA per day.

“Our findings suggest that consuming DHA regularly protects the brain against fructose’s harmful effects,” said Gomez-Pinilla. “It’s like saving money in the bank. You want to build a reserve for your brain to tap when it requires extra fuel to fight off future diseases.”

The UCLA study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Gomez-Pinilla’s lab will next examine the role of diet in recovery from brain trauma.

Those were the findings of research published in the most recent issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, with the lead author being Tracey Covassin, an associate professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University.

The results of the study were widely reported by the media last Friday, including The New York Times and WebMD.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/concussions-may-be-more-severe-in-girls-and-young-athletes/

http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20120511/concussions-girls-have-longer-recovery-time

The study took place over five years, and it tracked high school and college athletes from California, Michigan, Louisiana and Tennessee, according to The Times. Covassin and her team gave the participants baseline cognitive and memory tests before the study started.

The youths in the group who suffered concussions were given three typical post-concussion tests, The Times reported.

In the wake of a concussion, high school athletes did worse than college athletes on the tests measuring verbal and visual memory according to WebMD.

“Girls and young women did worse than boys and young men on visual memory,” WebMD reported. “Girls and young women had more symptoms than boys and young men.”

The research found that college athletes took about seven days to recover from a concussion, while high school athletes could take as long as 14 days to recover, according to WebMD.

There are a number of theories as to why young athletes and female athletes take long to heal from a concussion. In terms of age, the brains of younger kids have not fully matured, and are more prone to injury.

The Times also quotes an expert who pointed out that young kids often had heads that are disproportionately large compared with their bodies. So their heads aren’t as stable on necks, which means that when they take a blow to the head, their heads shake a lot. Their brains then shift and band against their skulls, The Times reported.

As for why females take longer to recovery from concussion, the fair sex apparently has higher blood flows to the brain than males, which may make the symptoms and recovery worse, according to both The Times and WebMD.

The Times also reported that females’ higher estrogen levels may also play a part in girls taking longer to recover than males.

Earlier this week, in the middle of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the NHL suspended Philadelphia Flyers Claude Giroux for one game, according to The New York Times.

http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/n-h-l-suspends-flyers-giroux-for-one-game/

His offense was making an ilegal blow to the head of New Jersey Devils forward Dainius Zubrus on Sunday.

Giroux defended his action, telling The Times, “I was just trying to finish my hit. My elbow was down. I didn’t jump. It’s a good thing he didn’t get hurt. But I’m a pretty  honest player. I’m not a dirty player. I’m not there to hurt anybody.”

But Giroux apparently didn’t convince NHL senior vice president of player safety Brendan Shanahan, who offered an explanation of his decision to suspend Giroux on the league’s website. There is also slow motion video of Giroux’s hit to Zubrus.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=60&intcmpid=nhl-hp-vidchn-safety

“To summarize, this was an illegal check to the head,” Shanahan said of Giroux’s action.

Good decision, Shanahan.

Bell, who has played eight seasons in the NFL, has told numerous media outlets that he doesn’t want to risk sustaining concussions that could lead to permanent brain damage in the long term.

Bell described Seau’s death as the “cherry on top” of his decision to retire, according to USA Today.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2012/05/bengals-jacob-bell-suddenly-retires-saying-junior-seaus-suicide-was-cherry-on-top/1?csp=hf#.T6s8nlLhcco

Seau’s suicide is one of several by retired NFL players that are suspected of being linked to a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. That disease causes depression, memory loss and personality changes.

Bell, who is only 31, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “I’ve been thinking about some different things, thinking about health, thinking about the future of my family having to deal with some crazy brain disease that nobody even knows about, where people want their brains studied after they’re dead.”

In terms of Seau’s suicide, Bell said, “You have to believe it came from the game of football.”

Yes, you do.

Bell also talked about the lack of scientific research on the precise impact of concussions.

“If you’re telling me ‘I’m seeing stars’ is some sort of concussion, then you’re getting a couple a week,” he told USA Today. “You’re going to get a minimum 30 concussions in a season. That just gives you a ballpark figure of what people are truly dealing with.”

I agree with Bell: Get out while the going’s good.

The New York Times Sunday did a Page One story on this particular form of dementia, which it described as a “little-known, poorly understood and frequently misdiagnosed group of brain diseases that eat away at personality and language.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/health/a-rare-form-of-dementia-tests-a-vow-of-for-better-for-worse.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

“Frontotemporal dementia, also called frontotemporal degeneration or Pick’s disease, refers to a group of diseases that destroy nerve centers in the frontal and temporal lobes — the home of decision-making, emotion, judgment, behavior and language,” The Times wrote. “Some forms of the disease also cause movement disorders.”

One of the key points of the story is that frontotemporal dementia is very different than Alzheimer’s. MRIs done of patients’ brains who have it show that their frontal and temporal lobes have gotten dramatically smaller, according to The Times.

Frontotemporal dementia is usually diagnosed in people younger than the typical patient with Alzheimer’s. It also moves quicker than Alzheimer’s, in terms of its impact. And its symptoms are much different than Alzheimer’s.

“Unlike Alzheimer’s, (it) does not attack memory at first but begins with silence, apathy or bizarre personality changes,” The Times wrote.

There are eight kinds of frontotemporal degeneration, according to the newspaper, categorized by symptom, such as impact on movement and the ability to speak.

According to The Times, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Americans have frontotemporal dementia.

The headline of The Times’ story was  “When Illness Makes A Spouse A Stranger,” and the story was framed around Michael French and his wife Ruth.  Michael underwent a series of dramatic personality changes, including not talking to his wife, over several years until the cause of his transformation was diagnosed in 2007: frontotemporal dementia.

Michael had been an engineer, a loving husband, a volunteer, a kind man.

“Now he can no longer speak, read, write or walk,” The Times wrote.

It finally came to a point where Ruth could no longer care for Michael at home. He is in a nursing home now, where Ruth often  visits him.

It is a well-written story article with many details about the science of this disease, and how families try to cope when a loved one has it. Give it a read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/sports/ray-easterlings-widow-to-keep-fighting-for-retired-nfl-players-with-head-injuries.html?_r=1&src=rechp

Easterling was a plaintiff in one of several suits that former players have filed against the NFL, alleging that the league failed to warn them or protect them from the long-term brain damage caused by repeated concussions. Mary Ann Easterling doesn’t plan to give up the legal fight, according to The Times.

Mary Ann has decided not to move from the home in Richmond, Va., where she found her husband’s body. Ray retired in 1979, but it was not a peaceful retirement. He underwent a dramatic personality change, Mary Ann told The Times.

He would sometimes make offensive remarks, or show up at family gatherings in running shorts, failing to dress up, according to The Times. Mary Ann would sometimes have to hunt for him when he got lost during late-night jogs.

Ray left a heart-breaking suicide note for Mary Ann. They were both devout Christians, and he wrote, “I’m ready to meet my Lord and savior,” according to The Times. He also told Mary Ann he loved her.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500290_162-57427518/nfl-faces-new-concussion-lawsuit-by-more-than-100-ex-players/

The latest lawsuit was filed Thursday in Federal Court in Atlanta, according to the Associated Press. In addition to Majkowski, ex-Atlanta Falcon Jamal Anderson and former Georgia player Lindsey Scott are among the plaintiffs in the action, which alleges that the NFL failed to protect players against the long-term impact of concussions.

Already more than 1,000 ex-NFL players are plaintiffs in several concussion lawsuits against the league. The actions charge that the NFL should have known, or hid, the permanent damage that repeated hits to the head cause to the brain.

Brett Favre replaced Majkowski as the Packers quarterback in 1992, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/150146185.html#!page=2&pageSize=10&sort=newestfirst

Majkowski played  for the Packers from 1987 to 1992, when he went to  Indianapolis as a free agent in 1993. He also played for Colts and the Detroit Lions.

There are other former Packers who are plaintiffs in the concussion lawsuits, including LeRoy Butler, Mark Chmura, MacArthur Lane, Santana Dotson, Dorsey Levens, Tootie Robbins and Tiger Greene, the Journal Sentinel reported.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/sports/team-chaplain-says-seau-family-will-donate-brain-for-research.html?_r=1&ref=sports

In a story Saturday,  The Times reported that a chaplain for the San Diego Chargers, one of the teams that Seau used to play with, told the newspaper that his survivors will let his brain be examined by researchers who are studying the long-term impact of repeated concussions on athletes.

There have been a handful of ex-NFL players who have committed suicide in the past few years, with the most recent one just about two weeks ago. In that case, former Atlanta Falcon Ray Easterling, who is one of hundreds of ex-players that are suing the league over the long-term impact of concussions, fatally shot himself April 19.

Seau’s suicide mirrored that of former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson in February 2011. Duerson shot himself in the chest, saying in a suicide note that he wanted his brain to be donated for research on football brain injuries. Although he didn’t leave a note, Seau also shot himself in the chest, like Duerson.

Several of the ex-player suicides — including those of Duerson and Easterling — have been linked to depression, memory loss and other cognitive problems that these athletes developed after their football careers ended.

Duerson’s brain showed that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease that’s been linked to repeated head trauma.

According to The Times, 18 of 19 ex-NFL players whose brains have been examined at Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy had CTE.

It wasn’t known where Seau’s brain will be studied, The Times reported.

Friends and family members of the former NFL linebacker, 43, were stunned to learn of Seau’s death. They said it just did not fit with the man they knew, the former San Diego Charger. He had not appeared despondent, and had chatted with his mom earlier this week.

He was an affable guy who had hosted a reality TV show, “Sports Jobs with Junior Seau,” and he owned a restaurant in Mission Valley, Calif.

Seau is one of a handful of ex-NFL players that have committed suicide, most recently Ray Easterling less than two weeks ago. Brain damage from repeated blows to the head, concussions, had led to depression, memory loss and personality changes in some of these now-deceased players.

The NFL is being sued by roughly 1,000 ex-pro players on this very issue, the claim that the league let them play even though it knew that concussions could cause long-term brain damage.

According to the Associated Press, Seau’s former wife Gina said that he had suffered concussions during his football career. But she didn’t know if they had played a part in him committing suicide. No one can answer that question at this point.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-05-03/junior-seau-suicide-medical-examiner-ruling-san-diego-chargers-linebacker?icid=maing-grid7|myaol|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D157807

The stories about Seau’s demise mentioned that he shot himself in the chest, not the head, which is exactly what former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson did last year. Duerson didn’t want to damage his head, because he wanted his brain to be studied by Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. That center has studied the brains of many deceased athletes to see if they were damaged from repeated concussions during their careers.

Seau’s distraught family is weighing whether to have his brain sent to Boston for examination, according to AP.

New York Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica addressed the brain injury issue in detail in “Too Many Give Up Their Lives For Brutal Game,” published Thursday.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/junior-seau-suicide-brings-focus-question-people-die-love-football-article-1.1071561

“There is no way of knowing at this time  that Junior Seau … was another ex-player suffering from some kind of traumatic brain injury,” Lupica wrote. “But would anyone be surprised if he did suffer from that kind of injury? … A big, fast violent player in a violent sport. How many hits to the head is that,  from Oceanside High and Junior Seau being found dead at his home in Oceanside yesterday morning?”

Lupica interviewed Dr. William Focazio, founder of Pain Alternatives, Solutions and Treatment, which provides free medical care and testing to ex-NFL players.

The doctor said that because of Seau’s playing style, he likely suffered repeated head injuries, which can cause clinical depression.

“Again: We don’t know if brain injuries brought Junior Seau to yesterday, but we know that he wasn’t just leading with his shoulder pads all those years,” Lupica wrote.

According to AP, Seau was “known for his ferocious tackles.”

Those tackles may have wound up making him pull a trigger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/health/research/study-shows-changes-in-fighters-brains-before-symptoms.html?_r=1

The article was about research being conducted by the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. The work is the year-old Professional Fighters Brain Health Study, and includes data from more than 100 fighters, according to The Times. Dr. Charles Bernick reported on the research’s findings so far Wednesday at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in New Orleans.

The study is being touted as unique in that it entails a big group of athletes who repeatedly sustain brain injury, who are then being given MRI scans and cognitive tests. The research is also gauging the long-term impact of  “constant lesser blows” to the brain as opposed to just “infrequent, hard blows,” The Times reported.

The takeaway is that MRI scans are finding physical changes in boxers’ brains before they show symptoms such as memory loss. The Times reported that the hippocampus and thalamus, which govern memory, get smaller in boxers who have been fighting for more than six years.

In turn, fighters who had boxed more than 12 years have cognitive problems, according to The Times.

What’s the significance of these findings?

“The idea that an MRI could help identify a degenerative brain disorder before a patient reports cognitive problems could help a broad range of people, from young athletes and combat soldiers … There may also be implications for understanding Alzheimer’s,” The Times wrote.

It is interesting research, and could turn out to be an important study.

That destruction to the brain’s axons, its nerve fibers, is essentially not visible with traditional MRIs, which diagnose bleeding and swelling of the brain. The axons form a path or network for messages to travel in the brain.

But researchers have finally developed a more accurate, sensitive MRI that does detect damage to the brain’s nerve-fiber pathways, according to a recent story by the Associated Press. The article was about a report that was published by the Journal of Neurosurgery about high-definition fiber tracking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/healthbeat-researchers-aim-to-find-the-invisible-damage-traumatic-brain-injury-leaves-behind/2012/03/01/gIQAnYj5kR_story.html

“The new scan processes high-powered MRIs through a special computer program to map major fiber tracts, painting then them in vivid greens, yellows and purples that designate their different functions,” AP wrote. “Researchers look for breaks in the fibers that could slow, or even stop, those nerve connections from doing their assigned job.”

The research and development of the new MRI is being done by Walter Schneider of the University of Pittsburgh.

The state-of-the-art MRI could help end the frustration of patients who are still suffering symptoms of concussion, such as headaches and memory loss, only to have their MRI’s say that they are OK.

One of the TBI patients that’s being tested with the new MRI is a Pennsylvania man who was in a coma for three months after an auto crash, according to AP. That man couldn’t move his left leg, arm or hand when he finally did wake up.

But using the HD fiber tracking, doctors found damage to nerves controlling the patient’s limbs, and he has regained use in several of them.

There is other research being conducted on upgrading MRIs  to make them more accurate, and useful, in the treatment of TBI. But this high-definition fiber tracking sounds especially promising.

“It’s not always an easy job … It’s not like it doesn’t affect you,” he told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The Ledger did a lengthy profile of Landolfi Thursday, in part following him around as he made his rounds with patients. He is one of the most renowned brain tumor specialists in the New Jersey, according to the newspaper.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/edison_brain_tumor_specialist.html

Landolfi’s specialty is glioblastomas, which The Ledger described as cancer of the glial, or gluey, supportive brain tissue. The Ledger described it as “the most frequently diagnosed form of brain cancer” and “the deadliest,” with a 4.7 percent survival rate.

In a sad anecdote, Landolfi recalled going to the funeral of a 3-year-old girl who had a cancerous tumor. He was so upset by seeing the family’s pain, he swore he would never to to another patient’s funeral and never has, according to The Ledger.

Landolfi describes the emotional challenges of dealing with many patients who will never live, and how he still tries to give them hope.

According to The Ledger, he treats 150 new brain tumor patients a year, and 15  die a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/nyregion/new-york-officer-stabbed-in-head-is-called-luckiest-unlucky-man.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/knife-rammed-nypd-officer-eder-loor-brain-sliver-leaving-blind-voiceless-paralyzed-dead-surgeon-article-1.1063995

A Manhattan police officer was stabbed in the brain by an attacker Tuesday. Yet the cop managed to pull the knife’s three-inch blade  out of his skull, and live to tell about it. According to physicians, the knife barely missed cutting into brain areas that control vision and motor function. A major artery was “nicked,” but not fully cut, according to The Times.

The best quote about the survival of 28-year-old Eder Loor was from Dr. Joshua Bederson, the head of neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center, who spoke at a news conference.

“He is probably the luckiest unlucky man you could ever have,” Bederson said, referring to Loor, whose family includes his pregnant wife Dina and 4 1/2-year-old daughter.

The press conference on Loor’s medical status was like a anatomy lesson to the public. Bederson used a model of the brain to demonstrate exactly where the knife had cut into Loor.

Loor is trained as an EMT, so when he pulled the knife out of his own head he immediately put pressure on the wound with a towel that someone on the street had handed him, according to The Times.

When Loor was taken to Mounti Sinai, he was initially alert, the paper reported. But he became sleepy as he bled inside and outside his brain from the knife wound. That hemorrhage was growing larger, putting pressure on his brain.

Surgeons took a piece of bone out of Loor’s skull, removed a blood clot and managed to stem the bleeding of the brain.

According to The Times, the knife went through Loor’s left temporal lobe, “damaging it in an area with little function.”

And the Daily News reported that “the blade stopped just an inch from the section of the temporal lobe that controls speech, and another half inch from the area than handles motor functions.”

The prognosis for Loor is that he will initially have numbness in his face, and that he may need to take some anti-epileptic drugs, but that he should make a fully recovery, according to The Times.

MIT announced the new procedure in a press release it issued last Wednesday, which began by explaining that ”brain tumors and head trauma, including concussions, can elevate pressure inside the skull, potentially crushing brain tissue or cutting off the brain’s blood supply.”

http://web.mit.edu/press/2012/intracranial-pressure-monitor.html

According to the release, “Monitoring pressure in the brains of such patients could help doctors determine the best treatment, but the procedure is so invasive — it requires drilling a hole through the skull — that it is done only in the most severely injured patients.”

However, now MIT doctors have developed a new technique that’s less risky, and could be used to measure brain pressure in patients who have had lesser brain injury, but still need to be closely monitored. Theresearch on the new method was published in the April 11 isse Science Translational Medicine.

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/129/129ra44

The study was performed by  researchers in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), based on a computer model of how blood flows through the brain.

“Using that model, the researchers can calculate brain pressure from two less invasive measurements: arterial blood pressure and an ultrasound measurement of the velocity of blood flow through the brain,” according to the MIT press release. “With this approach, changes in brain pressure can be monitored over time, alerting doctors to problems that might build up slowly.”

Intracranial pressure (ICP), or pressure in the brain, can rise due to the presence of excessive fluid (blood or cerebrospinal fluid), a brain tumor or swelling of the brain.

To measure such pressure, surgeons typically drill a hole in the skull and insert a catheter into the brain tissue or a fluid-filled cavity in the brain. But that procedure is so dangerous, it is only done on the most critically ill patients, because the risk of infection or damage to the brain outweighs the benefits, according to study co-author George Verghese, the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT.

“There’s a much larger patient population for whom physicians would like this measurement, but the invasiveness stops them from obtaining it,” said Verghese, whose lab focuses on using computer models of human physiology to interpret patient data.

“In his PhD thesis, Faisal Kashif, who is now a postdoc in Verghese’s lab and the lead author on the paper, developed a computer model that relates arterial blood pressure and blood flow through the brain to pressure in the brain,” MIT’s press release said. “The flow of blood through the brain is caused by the difference in pressure between the blood entering the brain and pressure inside the brain (ICP). Therefore, using Kashif’s model, ICP can be calculated from the flow and the pressure of blood entering the brain.”

Because the pressure of blood entering the brain isn’t directly measurable, the MIT team used radial arterial pressure, taken by inserting a catheter at the wrist, as a proxy for that measurement.

“They then used their model of blood flow to compensate for the difference in location,” the press release said. “Peripheral arterial pressure can also be measured continuously and noninvasively by using a finger cuff similar to the arm cuff commonly used to measure blood pressure. The researchers are now investigating whether data obtained this way is accurate enough to use in their model.”

MIT researchers verified the accuracy of their technique using data collected several years ago by collaborator Marek Czosnyka at Cambridge University in Great Britain, from patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). It was apparently one of the few data sets that included all the measurements they needed, along with the proper time stamps.

Czosnyka sent the data on radial arterial blood pressure and ultrasound blood flow velocity to the MIT team, which then ran the numbers through their model and came up with an estimated ICP. They then sent that back to Czosnyka for comparison.

Their results were slightly less accurate than those obtained with the best invasive procedures, according to MIT, but comparable to other invasive procedures that are still in clinical use, and to some less invasive techniques that have been tried.

“It’s a holy grail of clinical neurosurgery to find a noninvasive way to measure pressure,” said James Holsapple, chief of neurosurgery at Boston Medical Center. “It would be a big step if we could get our hands on something reliable.”

The new MIT approach shows promise, according to Holsapple. He added that the next step is to incorporate the technology into a system that would be easy for hospital staff to use and could record data over many hours or days.

The MIT team, along with co-author Vera Novak of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, is now collaborating with doctors at BIDMC to test their approach on patients in the neurosurgical intensive care unit.

“It’s still at the validation stage. To convince people that this works, you need to build up more [data] than we currently have,” Verghese said. “Our hope is that once it’s been validated on additional sorts of patients, where you’re able to show that you can match what the invasive measurement is, people will have confidence in starting to apply it to patients who are currently not getting monitored. That’s where we see the big potential.”

Thomas Heldt, a research scientist in RLE and senior author of the paper, says that once the data collection and model are established, the team hopes to test different patient populations — such as athletes with concussions, or soldiers who have experienced explosions — to come up with ways to determine the extent of injury and when it is not yet safe for an athlete or soldier to return to the field, MIT said in its press release.

And there’s another possible application: monitoring astronauts during and after long space flights, according to MIT.

“NASA has observed signs of elevated ICP in some of these astronauts, and is now seeking new ways to measure it,” MIT said in its release.

He played the character Mongo in Mel Brook’s hilarious spoof of Westerns, “Blazing Saddles.”

And Karras played a dad in a 1980s sitcom, “Webster.”

In a column Saturday, Associated Press writer Tim Dahlberg wrote that Karras at age 76 is suffering from dementia, and that he is one of 1,200 former National Football League players suing the league, alleging that it hid or ignored the dangers of repeated brain injuries from players.

And now those retired athletes are paying the price, in terms of their lapsing mental health, and want compensation.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikings/nfl/147455705.html

According to Karras’s wife, the former Detroit Lions tackle can no longer drive. He used to enjoy cooking, but he can’t get in front of a stove now because he can’t remember his recipes, according to Dahlberg.

The gist of Dahlberg’s column is that fans at one time were idolizing and cheering on players such as Karras, Chicago Bear Jim McMahon,  Dallas Cowboy Tony Dorsett and Minnesota Viking Brent Boyd.

But these retired players are on trouble now, with no medical insurance and no compensation for their worsening health, according to Dahlberg.

His column does note that the league and players’ union have set up “the 88 plan,” which was named after Hall of Famer John Mackey. His number was 88. He suffered from dementia and died at age 69, but he and his wife helped establish the special fund to help those with dementia, Dahlberg wrote.

He then made a plea for the retired, mentally deteriorating players.

“Forgive most of those left behind, though, if they feel like they’ve been cast off and forgotten,” Dahlberg wrote. “The league didn’t take care of them then, and it’s not taking care of them now. Some made a lot of money, sure. Many others didn’t, and they’re hurting in a lot of ways from playing a sport where hurt is a given.”