AANS Neurosurgeon Newsline

Jeffrey Raskin, MS, MD, a neurosurgeon at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, performed the first ever computer-guided radiofrequency ablation to decrease excessive muscle tone (called hypertonia) in a child with cerebral palsy. In hypertonia, muscles are constantly activated, which causes severe pain and deformity in the bones and joints, and profoundly impacts the child’s quality of...

A Ludwig Cancer Research study has for the first time exhaustively analyzed immune cells known as neutrophils that reside in brain tumors, including gliomas, which develop in the brain itself, and cancers that spread there from the lung, breast and skin. Led by Ludwig Lausanne’s Johanna Joyce and Roeltje Maas, an MD-PhD student in her laboratory, the study also details the key...

The blood-brain barrier, the body’s way of shielding sensitive brain tissue from viruses, toxins and other harmful substances in the blood, can pose a problem for physicians caring for patients with suspected brain diseases such as cancer. Molecular and genetic information would be invaluable for confirming a diagnosis and guiding treatment decisions, but such molecules are normally confined to...

Is it true progression or pseudoprogression in tumor growth? That’s the critical question for radiation and medical oncologists treating patients with glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. Distinguishing between these types of progression is vitally important for treatment management. “Knowing if it’s true progression, indicative of a poor response to treatment, or pseudoprogression, a favorable response that...

Novel brain biometrics could help inform whether an athlete is ready to return to play following a concussion, according to new research from the University of South Australia. Conducted in partnership with the University of California San Francisco (UCFC), researchers found that changes in micromovements of the brain – termed ‘headpulses’ – could detect the lasting impacts of a concussion. Using a custom-designed headset* to evaluate...

Until recently, our understanding of Parkinson's disease has been quite limited, which has been apparent in the limited treatment options and management of this debilitating condition. Our recent understanding has primarily revolved around the genetic factors responsible for familial cases, while the causative factors in the vast majority of patients remained unknown. However, in a new study, researchers from the University...

A new study has unravelled a crucial link between how cancer cells cope with replication stress and the role of Taurine Upregulated Gene 1 (TUG1). By targeting TUG1 with a drug, the researchers were able to control brain tumor growth in mice, suggesting a potential strategy to combat aggressive brain tumors such as glioblastomas.  “These findings have the potential to be...

Combining a common chemotherapy drug with an experimental nanotechnology allowed the drug to cross the blood-brain barrier and increased the survival rate in a mouse model of glioblastoma up to 50%, a team led by researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center and UT Dallas found. Their research, published in Nature Communications, could lead to possible new treatments for glioblastoma, the most...

 Van Andel Institute scientists have identified a series of processes that help the brain adapt to damage caused by breakdowns in circuits that govern movement, cognition and sensory perception. Because such breakdowns contribute to Parkinson’s disease, the findings may one day help researchers optimize current treatments or develop new ones that repair or bypass the broken circuits. A study describing the findings...

A study led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center sheds new light on why tumors that have spread to the brain from other parts of the body respond to immunotherapy while glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that originates in the brain, does not. In people with tumors that originated in other parts of the body but spread to...