Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have transplanted brain cancer patients’ own gene-modified blood stem cells in order to protect their bone marrow against the toxic side effects of chemotherapy. Initial results of the ongoing, small clinical trial of three patients with glioblastoma showed that two patients survived longer than predicted had they not been given the transplants; a third patient remains alive with no disease progression nearly three years after treatment.

“We found that patients were able to tolerate the chemotherapy better and without negative side effects after transplantation of the gene-modified stem cells than patients in previous studies who received the same type of chemotherapy without a transplant of gene-modified stem cells,” says Hans-Peter Kiem, M.D., senior and corresponding author of the study, which appears in Science Translational Medicine. For more information, click here to read the full article.

A new study has found that how well people with newly diagnosed epilepsy respond to their first drug treatment may signal the likelihood that they will continue to have more seizures. The results of this research appear in the May 9, 2012, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“Our research shows a pattern based on how a person responds to initial treatment and specifically, to their first two courses of drug treatment,” says study author Patrick Kwan, MD, PhD, of the University of Melbourne in Australia. For more information, click here to read the full article.

Florida State University evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk and a group of anthropological researchers have found two significant features in the Taung fossil — the first australopithecine ever discovered — suggesting that brain evolution was a result of a complex set of interrelated dynamics in childbirth among new bipeds. The results of their research were published May 7 in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For more information, click here to read the full article.

Very early musical training can benefit children even before they can walk or talk, say researchers at McMaster University, who just completed the first study of its kind in this area. Results show that one-year-old babies who participate in interactive music classes with their parents smile more, communicate better, and show earlier and more sophisticated brain responses to music. The findings have been published in the scientific journals Developmental Science and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. For more information, click here for the full article

Research now reveals why some people are willing work harder than others. A new brain imaging study has found that an individual’s willingness to work hard to earn money is strongly influenced by the chemistry in three specific areas of the brain. Said research also could have important implications for the treatment of conditions such as attention-deficit disorder, depression, schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness characterized by decreased motivation.

The study was conducted by a team of Vanderbilt University scientists, including postdoctoral student Michael Treadway, MA, and Associate Professor of Psychology David Zald, PhD. Results were published on May 2 in the Journal of Neuroscience. For more information, click here to read the full article.

Many treatments can help prevent migraine in certain people, yet few candidates for these preventive treatments actually use them, according to the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). The AAN announced new guidelines for migraine prevention, which it co-developed with the American Headache Society, at its 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans; they also were published in the April 24, 2012, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“Studies show that migraine is underrecognized and undertreated,” says guideline author Stephen D. Silberstein, MD, FACP, FAHS, of Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “About 38 percent of people who suffer from migraine could benefit from preventive treatments, but only less than a third of these people currently use them.” For more information, click here to read the full release.

The neuron-killing pathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) — which begins before clinical symptoms appear — requires the presence of both amyloid-beta (a-beta) plaque deposits and elevated levels of an altered protein called p-tau, a new study reports. Without both, progressive clinical decline associated with AD in cognitively healthy older individuals is “not significantly different from zero,” say scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Their research appears in the April 23 online issue of Archives of Neurology. For more information, click here to read the full article.

Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy. However, since then, the procedure has not been widely adopted — in fact, it is dramatically underutilized, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The study, published in this month’s Neurology journal, shows that the number of Americans having the surgery has not changed in the decade since its release, although surgical treatment now is uniformly encouraged by neurology and neurosurgery professional societies. For more information, click here to read the full release.

A cellular protein called HDAC6 has been newly characterized as a gatekeeper of steroid biology in the brain. As such, it may provide a novel target for treating and preventing stress-linked disorders like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), say researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Glucocorticoids are natural steroids secreted by the body during stress. A small amount of these hormones helps with normal brain function; however, their excess is a precipitating factor for stress-related disorders. For more information, click here to read the full release.

A University of Michigan math professor will lead an international, $1 million project that examines the connection between bipolar disorder and abnormalities in the circadian, or daily, rhythms of a mammal’s internal clock.

In humans, this grain-of-rice-sized timepiece is a cluster of 20,000 neurons located right behind the eyes. It’s called the suprachiasmatic nucleas (SCN) of the brain’s hypothalamus and is responsible for keeping our bodies in synch with our planet’s 24-hour day. For more information, click here to read the full release.