#5Thoughts Friday

The

Bill of Rights Day

Edition



12/15/2023

36th Annual BIAMD Conference Call for Presentations!!!

Conference Date: March 21-22, 2024

Do you have a new presentation or research to share with the brain injury community at the 2024 Brain Injury Association of Maryland's annual conference?

If yes, we are currently taking submissions!!!

The Maryland Commission on Caregiving wants to hear from family caregivers like you. Family caregivers are people who assist adults aged 18 or older with disabilities, illnesses, diseases, or limitations that make it hard for them to take care of themselves. Caregivers help with things like personal care, household chores, managing money, arranging services, or regularly visiting to check on how they are doing. We have created a survey that will take about 15 minutes of your time. It asks questions about the care you provide to your loved one, how caregiving has affected your life, and what you need as a family caregiver.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

5) MRI Reveals Lasting Brain Changes in Post-COVID Patients

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have examined the brains of 16 patients previously hospitalised for COVID-19 with persisting symptoms. They have found differences in brain tissue structure between patients with persisting symptoms after COVID-19 and healthy people.

Their findings, published in the journal B'

rain Communications, can bring insights into the underlying mechanisms of persisting neurological problems after COVID-19.

Several previous studies of persisting problems after COVID have involved MRI brain scanning. Although researchers have found differences compared with healthy brains, these differences are not specific to COVID-19.

“It can be frustrating for me as a doctor when I understand that the patients have problems, but I can’t find an explanation because there’s nothing in the MRI scan to explain it.

“To me, this underlines the importance of trying other examination technologies to understand what’s happening in the brain in patients with persisting symptoms after COVID-19,” says Ida Blystad, neuroradiologist in the Department of Radiology at Linköping University Hospital and researcher affiliated with the Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences at Linköping University and the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV).

CLICK HERE for more.

Brain Injury Connector Podcast gets a Shoutout!

CLICK HERE or picture above to read more.

Photo by EJ Strat on Unsplash

4) Brain Area Associated With Impulse Control Discovered

Summary: A new study identified the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a central regulator in the brain’s inhibitory control circuit.

Using dynamic causal modeling and fMRI on a sample of 250 participants, the study reveals that the rIFG significantly influences the caudate nucleus and thalamus during response inhibition tasks. This research also shows gender differences in brain function: women have distinct neural patterns in the thalamus, and overall, better inhibitory control correlates with stronger neural communication from the thalamus to the rIFG.

These findings provide valuable insights for developing neuromodulation therapies for mental and neurological disorders with inhibitory control deficits.

Key Facts:

1. The study identifies the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a crucial component in controlling the brain’s response inhibition.
2. Gender-specific brain functioning was observed, with women showing different neural activity patterns in the thalamus compared to men.
3. Stronger neural communication from the thalamus to the rIFG was linked to better inhibitory control, highlighting potential targets for neuromodulation therapies.

Source: West China Hospital of Sichuan University

Published in the 2023 Volume 3 issue of Psychoradiology a team of dedicated researchers from The University of Hong Kong and The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China has conclusively identified the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a key input and causal regulator within the subcortical response inhibition nodes.

CLICK HERE to read more about the study.

The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) wants to hear from you (and your friends and family) about what you consider to be the most pressing health issues for Maryland residents!

MDH has launched a collaborative initiative called “Building a Healthier Maryland," which is aimed at improving the health and well-being of all Maryland residents. Please complete a very brief survey so that your voice is heard. The survey is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean and is intended for any Maryland resident who is at least 18 years old. The survey closes on January 3, 2024.  

Photo by Xiao Cui on Unsplash

3) Deep brain stimulation improves cognition after injury

Five people who had life-altering, seemingly irreversible cognitive deficits following moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries showed substantial improvements in their cognition and quality of life after receiving an experimental form of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in a phase 1 clinical trial.

The trial, reported Dec. 4 in Nature Medicine, was led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, Stanford University, the Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School and the University of Utah.

The findings pave the way for larger clinical trials of the DBS technique and offer hope that cognitive deficits associated with disability following traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be treatable, even many years after the injury.

The DBS stimulation, administered for 12 hours a day, targeted a brain region called the thalamus. After three months of treatment, all the participants scored higher on a standard test of executive function that involves mental control, with the improvements ranging from 15% to 55%.

The participants also markedly improved on secondary measures of attention and other executive functions. Several of the participants and their family members reported substantial quality of life gains, including improvements in the ability to work and to participate in social activities, according to a report describing participant and family perspectives from the trial. Dr. Joseph Fins, the E. William Davis, Jr., MD Professor of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medicine, led that research effort.

CLICK HERE to read more.

2) Books We are READING This Week

The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

by

 Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga 

Is happiness something you choose for yourself? The Courage to Be Disliked presents a simple and straightforward answer. Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of nineteenth-century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, this book follows an illuminating dialogue between a philosopher and a young man. Over the course of five conversations, the philosopher helps his student to understand how each of us is able to determine the direction of our own life, free from the shackles of past traumas and the expectations of others.

CLICK HERE to see more.

Photo by Valentin Petkov on Unsplash

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND !



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