Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EBS Technologies GmbH, an emerging medical device company developing the revolutionary NEXT WAVE brain stimulation platform for treatment of neurological disorders caused by stroke and brain injury, announced today that it has received CE marking for NEXT WAVE and expects to begin commercialization in Europe immediately as the result of closing a Series B financing round of $3.9 million (3,0 million) from existing investors: including lead investor Earlybird Venture Partners, High-Tech Grnderfonds (HTGF), and Brandenburg Capital. Total investment in EBS Technologies is $8.7 million (6,7 million). There is a very significant unmet clinical need for the treatment of vision impairment caused by a neurological disorder such as a stroke, said Ulf Pommerening, CEO of EBS Technologies. For example, stroke is the worlds third-leading cause of death as well as the leading cause of serious, long-term disability. There are more than 10 million stroke survivors with long-term disability in Europe and the U.S. Three out of five of these disabled persons are potentially treatable with our non-invasive EBS Next Wave therapy. We are extremely pleased that our existing investors, lead by Earlybird Venture Partners, increased their commitment to EBS, based on strong clinical results with our low-risk, non-invasive NEXT … Continue reading →

STOCKHOLM--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News: NeuroVive Pharmaceutical AB (publ)(NVP.ST), a leading mitochondrial medicine company, has recruited the first patient in a Phase IIa clinical trial to evaluate the companys drug candidate NeuroSTAT for the treatment of traumatic brain injury. The trial is being conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery, Copenhagen University Hospital under the supervision of Professor Bertil Romner and Dr Walter Fischer. Bertil Romner is a leading expert in the treatment of traumatic brain injury, and Walter Fischer is the studys principal investigator. The phase IIa trial is an open label, uncontrolled study that will recruit a total of 20 patients. The primary endpoint of the study is to evaluate NeuroSTATs pharmacokinetic properties and safety in patients with severe traumatic brain injury. In addition, secondary endpoints include several monitoring techniques to study the effect of NeuroSTAT at the mitochondrial level and how different biochemical processes are influenced by NeuroSTAT after a brain injury has occurred. Traumatic brain injury is an area of huge medical need for which there are currently no approved pharmaceutical treatment options. Mikael Brnnegrd, CEO of NeuroVive Pharmaceutical said: The inclusion of the first patient in our phase IIa trial to evaluate NeuroSTAT for traumatic brain injury … Continue reading →

BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EBS Technologies GmbH, an emerging medical device company developing the revolutionary NEXT WAVE brain stimulation platform for treatment of vision deficits caused by neurological disorders, announced today the results of a multi-center, 82-patient clinical trial of its NEXT WAVE brain stimulation device. About one-half of the clinical trial patients were given a 40-minute treatment protocol for 10 consecutive days with the NEXT WAVE device. With a mean increase of 24%, NEXT WAVE-treated patients showed significantly better improvements in stimulation of their total visual field compared to patients in the control group, which did not receive NEXT WAVE stimulation. All patients had vision impairment lasting at least six months prior to the clinical trial and had exhausted all standard therapeutic options to improve their vision. There is a huge unmet clinical need for the treatment of vision impairment caused by a variety of different neurological disorders, such as neuropathy of the optic nerve, brain injury or stroke. For example, stroke alone is the worlds third-leading cause of death as well as the leading cause of serious, long-term disability. There are more than 10.4 million stroke survivors with long-term disability in Europe and the U.S. Three out of five of … Continue reading →

TEL AVIV, Israel, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Israel Brain Technologies (IBT) has announced the ten finalists for its $1 million Global B.R.A.I.N. (Breakthrough Research And Innovation in Neurotechnology) Prize competition - an international R&D award for breakthroughs in the field of brain technology. Finalists include leading researchers from the world's elite institutions as well as companies addressing the world's most critical brain-related health issues. The finalists were chosen from amongst entries from eleven different countries. The finalist projects represent breakthrough achievements with potential for significant impact on humanity. The ten finalists are: Dr. Hagai Bergman - Improved adaptive deep brain stimulation technique to treatParkinson's disease and otherbasal ganglia disorders including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders and schizophrenia. Dr. Edward Boyden- Developing optogenetics, which enables cells to be activated by light, towards identifying clinically relevant targets in the brain and for treating brain disorders. BrainGate Team led by Dr. John Donoghue-Development and first demonstrations of a neural interface system being used by people with paralysis to provide direct brain control of communication devices, computers, and robotic limbs to restore functions performed by the arm and hand. ElMindA & Soterix (Collaboration) - Integrating brain functional mapping and monitoring with targeted brain stimulation technology … Continue reading →

Posted on: 10:11 pm, June 1, 2013, by Mark Green, updated on: 10:12pm, June 1, 2013 SALT LAKE CITY A new study indicates people in the military who suffer more than one traumatic brain injury have a higher risk of suicide. Assistant psychology professor Craig Bryan, University of Utah, was the lead author of the research performed by the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah. They studied 161 military personnel stationed in Iraq who had a possible traumatic brain injury and found their risk for suicidal thoughts increased significantly over the short-term as well as throughout the individuals lifetime. Bryan said the problem is complicated by the fact some soldiers are unwilling to face up to the full danger of the situation. Most will minimize the problems and the symptoms theyre having because they dont want to be removed from duty, he said. They want to stay and continue their mission. Bryan said soldiers who do report symptoms after an injury usually see improvement within 24 to 72 hours of the incident. The recovery is quite rapid for concussions as long as the person sidelines for a while, he said. They take some time off. They … Continue reading →

Home News Sleep News Light Therapy May Improve Sleep, Cognition After Brain Injury By Janice Wood Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 1, 2013 Best known as a treatment for seasonal affective disorder, bright light therapy may improve sleep, cognition, emotion and brain function following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to a new study. The study found that six weeks of morning bright light therapy resulted in a marked decrease in daytime sleepiness. This improvement was associated with improvements in the propensity to fall asleep and night-time sleep quality, according to the study. The bright light therapy also affected depressive symptoms, researchers said. Our preliminary data suggests that morning bright light therapy might be helpful to reduce subjective daytime sleepiness and to improve night-time sleep, said Mareen Weber, Ph.D., an instructor in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Importantly, the research also shows changes in brain activation during a demanding cognitive task, suggesting that bright light treatment might yield changes in brain functioning. For the study, researchers recruited 18 people with a documented history of at least one mild TBI and sleep problems that either emerged or were aggravated by the most recent injury. … Continue reading →

Public release date: 30-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Lynn Celmer lcelmer@aasmnet.org American Academy of Sleep Medicine DARIEN, IL A new study suggests that bright light therapy may improve sleep, cognition, emotion and brain function following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Results show that six weeks of morning bright light therapy resulted in a marked decrease in subjective daytime sleepiness. This improvement was further associated with improvements in the propensity to fall asleep and nighttime sleep quality. Bright light therapy also affected depressive symptoms. "Our preliminary data suggests that morning bright light therapy might be helpful to reduce subjective daytime sleepiness and to improve nighttime sleep," said investigator Mareen Weber, PhD, instructor in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Mass. "Importantly, the research also shows changes in brain activation during a demanding cognitive task, suggesting that bright light treatment might yield changes in brain functioning." The research abstract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal SLEEP, and Weber will present the findings Monday, June 3, in Baltimore, Md., at SLEEP 2013, the 27th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC. The study group comprised 18 individuals with a documented history of … Continue reading →

Washington, May 31 : Tel Aviv University researchers have found that extremely low doses of THC - the psychoactive component of marijuana - protects the brain from long-term cognitive damage in the wake of injury from hypoxia (lack of oxygen), seizures, or toxic drugs. Brain damage can have consequences ranging from mild cognitive deficits to severe neurological damage. Previous studies focused on injecting high doses of THC within a very short time frame - approximately 30 minutes - before or after injury. The current research by Prof. Yosef Sarne of Tel Aviv University's Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine demonstrates that even extremely low doses of THC - around 1,000 to 10,000 times less than that in a conventional marijuana cigarette - administered over a wide window of 1 to 7 days before or 1 to 3 days after injury can jumpstart biochemical processes which protect brain cells and preserve cognitive function over time. This treatment, especially in light of the long time frame for administration and the low dosage, could be applicable to many cases of brain injury and be safer over time, Prof. Sarne said. While performing experiments on the … Continue reading →

Newswise Measuring blood flow in the brain may be an easy, noninvasive way to predict stroke or hemorrhage in children receiving cardiac or respiratory support through a machine called ECMO, according to a new study by researchers at Nationwide Childrens Hospital. Early detection would allow physicians to alter treatment and take steps to prevent these complicationsthe leading cause of death for patients on ECMO. Short for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ECMO is used when a patient is unable to sustain enough oxygen in the blood supply due to heart failure, septic shock, or other life-threatening condition, said Nicole OBrien, MD, a physician and scientist in critical care medicine at Nationwide Childrens and lead author of the study, which appears in a recent issue of the journal Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. The patient is connected to ECMO with tubes that carry the patients blood from a vein through the machine, where it is oxygenated and funneled back to the patient via an artery or vein that then distributes the oxygen-rich blood to vital organs and tissues. The disease processes that lead someone to need ECMO are different, OBrien noted, but it is used only after traditional therapies, such as a ventilator, fail. … Continue reading →

May 29, 2013 University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have uncovered what may be a key molecular mechanism behind the lasting damage done by traumatic brain injury. The discovery centers on a particular form of a protein that neuroscientists call tau, which has also been associated with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Under ordinary conditions, tau is essential to neuron health, but in Alzheimer's the protein aggregates into two abnormal forms: so-called "neurofibrillary tangles," and collections of two, three, or four or more tau units known as "oligomers." Neurofibrillary tangles are not believed to be harmful, but tau oligomers are toxic to nerve cells. They also are thought to have an additional damaging property -- when they come into contact with healthy tau proteins, they cause them to also clump together into oligomers, and so spread toxic tau oligomers to other parts of the brain. Now, in experiments with laboratory rats, using novel antibodies developed at UTMB, scientists have found that traumatic brain injuries also generate tau oligomers. The destructive protein assemblages formed within four hours after injury and persisted for at least two weeks -- long enough to suggest that they might contribute to lasting brain … Continue reading →