Medtronic, Inc. has announced a new deep-brain-stimulation (DBS) system called Activa PC+S that enables sensing and recording select brain activity, at various times selected by a physician, while simultaneously providing targeted DBS therapy.

Previous Medtronic systems were limited to stimulation.

“The new system will allow for new research that could one day significantly change the way people with devastating neurological and psychological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, essential… read more

Drinking two cups of hot chocolate a day may help older people keep their brains healthy and their thinking skills sharp, according to a study published in the August 7, 2013, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study involved 60 people with an average age of 73 who did not have dementia. The participants drank two cups of… read more

MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung wants to map the networks connecting the 100 billion neurons in the human brain,those networks, creating a wiring diagram of the brain that could help scientists learn how we each become our unique selves.

In a paper appearing in the Aug. 7 edition of Nature, Seung and collaborators at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Germany have… read more

Neurosurgeons at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center are among the first in the world to use real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guidance for delivery of gene therapy as a potential treatment for brain tumors.

Using MRI navigational technology, neurosurgeons can inject Toca 511 (vocimagene amiretrorepvec), a novel investigational gene therapy, directly into… read more