Archive by category | Neuroscience/mental health

Real-time tissue analysis could guide brain tumor surgery

The intraoperative mass spectrometry platform for image-guided surgery in the Advanced Mutimodality Image Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School as part of the National Center for Image Guided Therapy. Part of the team from left to right: Dr. David Calligaris, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Sandro Santagata, Neuropathologist, Dr. Alexandra Golby, Neurosurgeon, and Isaiah Norton, Senior Programmer Analyst.

It doesn’t get much more complicated than brain surgery. Surgeons tasked with removing brain tumors have limited information available to help them make decisions about what tissue appears cancerous and how much to excise without damaging brain regions important to key functions such as movement and speech. But decisions about how much to cut might become easier in the near future: A study published today offers a possible way to discern which brain tissue is cancerous and guide surgeons in real time. The research, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses a technique formerly confined to analytical chemistry labs, called mass spectrometry, to make this determination right in the operating room.  Read more

Voting commences on research prize determined by public poll

It’s an off year in the US election cycle, which means that neither the President nor most members of Congress will face the voters come November. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still cast a ballot this fall. Today, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston announced the finalists for the second annual BRIght Futures Prize, a $100,000 research contest in which the winner is decided by a public poll. Voting is now open through 21 November.  Read more

Lasker Awards go to rapid neurotransmitter release and modern cochlear implant

Lasker Awards go to rapid neurotransmitter release and modern cochlear implant

A very brainy area of research has scooped up one of this year’s $250,000 Lasker prizes, announced today: The Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award has gone to two researchers who shed light on the molecular mechanisms behind the rapid release of neurotransmitters—findings that have implications for understanding the biology of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, as well the cellular functions underlying learning and memory formation.  Read more