Category Archives: Neurological Disorders

November 17

A Series of Exciting Events

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Have you ever wondered what it is like to have a seizure? Well, I have epilepsy, and let me tell you: so do I. That is because there are many different types of seizures and of epilepsy, and some—like mine—involve a loss of consciousness, as well as memory deficits. What all seizures have in common, […]

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October 13

The Wandering Nerve

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What do epilepsy, depression, and anxiety all have in common? No, this is not some one-liner joke, there is an actual answer to this question. Could it be that they all could be targeted by a single treatment? To understand how this could be, let’s look into what these disorders are, first. Epilepsy is a […]

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September 08

Shocking the brain to protect your memories

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by JC Gorman Have you tried turning it on and off again? You may be *shocked* to hear it, but recent studies have shown that administering small electric currents to the brain could protect older people from memory loss. A research paper that came out this month showed an even more acute way to prevent […]

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August 25

An Appetite for Epilepsy

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Have you ever wondered what really makes up your body? Well, even if you haven’t, you’ll be surprised to know that there are trillions of microorganisms living inside you, so many that they outnumber your actual body cells 10 to 1: for every one of your cells, there are 10 microorganisms. That’s right, you’ve got […]

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July 07

The Forgotten:

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Image source: “New Awakenings: The Legacy & Future of Encephalitis Lethargica (EL)” (Sparacin 2012) Some call it “the sleepy-sickness”, others encephalitis lethargica. This mysterious disease, lost to time, bears its colloquial name because those who contracted it entered an “all-enveloping trancelike sleep” (1); and some of those who entered this sleep, did not awake for […]

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June 23

A Genetic Identity Crisis: Mosaicism in the Brain

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We carry with us every day trillions of copies of one of the best stories ever written: the human genome. Carefully drafted and edited over 4 billion years, our genome contains all the information necessary, and then some, for making a human being from scratch. Often we think of this recipe book as a monolith: […]

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June 16

Breathe in the Benefits: Hyperbaric Oxygen for PTSD

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Even if you haven’t heard the term “hyperbaric oxygen treatment” (HBOT), you are actually probably familiar with its premise. Most often, we hear of this treatment being used for divers that ascend from depth too quickly and experience decompression sickness (“the bends”) caused by a buildup of gas bubbles in their blood from rapid changes […]

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May 05

Brainspotting: Are the eyes the window to the soul?

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“On the first session, I started by focusing on a difficult memory while concentrating on the pain that it caused me … This pain reached a climax, then … it died down, giving way to a feeling of peace and well-being … I sometimes felt myself shedding tears, but for each memory, the pain climaxed […]

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April 21

The Genetic Curse of Fatal Insomnia

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Not being able to fall asleep when you want to is frustrating. No matter how tired we are, we all have nights when we just can’t fall or stay asleep. The role of sleep in our everyday health is critical, which is no more apparent than the day after one of those sleepless nights when […]

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March 03

Why does diabetes make my foot go numb?

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Context–what is diabetic neuropathy? Worldwide, about 1 in 10 adults have diabetes, with that number expected to rise in the coming decades [1]. In this disease, the body becomes unable to properly produce or respond to insulin, leading to high blood sugar levels and abnormal energy processing [2]. Thankfully, many medications, lifestyle interventions (e.g. exercise), […]

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