Brain Changes Continue After Child's Concussion

Brain changes in children who have suffered a concussion continue to occur even after they no longer have symptoms of the injury, according to a new study. The findings highlight the potential benefit of using advanced brain imaging techniques to monitor a child's recovery, said the researcher. The team looked at 15 children, aged 10 to 17, who had recently suffered a mild concussion. Structural changes seen in brain white matter about two weeks after the concussion were still evident more than three months later although the children no longer had any symptoms of their injury. The investigators also found that the extent of white matter changes in the children was larger than what has previously been reported for adults with mild concussion. This suggests that developmental differences in the brain or the musculoskeletal system may make children more susceptible to concussion. These findings may have important implications about when it is truly safe for a child to resume physical activities that may produce a second concussion, potentially further injuring an already vulnerable brain, said the author. Further work is needed to determine whether the changes in white matter present at four months represent a prolonged recovery process or permanent change in the brain, experts said.

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Study Examines Link Between Breast Cancer and Diabetes

Postmenopausal breast cancer survivors are at increased risk for developing diabetes and should be screened for the disease more closely, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed data from 1996 to 2008 from the province of Ontario, Canada, to determine the incidence of diabetes among nearly 25,000 breast cancer survivors aged 55 or older and nearly 125,000 age-matched women without breast cancer. During a median follow-up of more than five years, nearly 10 percent of all the women in the study developed diabetes. Compared to those who had not had breast cancer, the risk of diabetes among breast cancer survivors was 7 percent higher two years after cancer diagnosis and 21 percent higher 10 years after cancer diagnosis, the investigators found. The risk of diabetes, however, decreased over time among breast cancer survivors who had undergone chemotherapy. Their risk compared to women without breast cancer was 24 percent higher in the first two years after cancer diagnosis and 8 percent higher 10 years after cancer diagnosis, according to the study. It is possible that chemotherapy treatment may bring out diabetes earlier in susceptible women. Increased weight gain has been noted after receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer, which may be a factor in the increased risk of diabetes in women receiving treatment, said the study author. Estrogen suppression as a result of chemotherapy may also promote diabetes. The study authors suggested that there may be other factors involved for women who received chemotherapy, including glucocorticoid drugs, which are used to treat nausea in patients receiving chemo and are known to cause spikes in blood sugar. In addition, breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are monitored more closely and thus are more likely to have diabetes detected, they noted. The researchers said it is unclear why diabetes risk increased over time among breast cancer survivors who did not receive chemotherapy. There is, however, evidence of an association between diabetes and cancer, which may be due to risk factors common to both conditions. One such risk factor is insulin resistance, which predisposes to both diabetes and many types of cancer-initially insulin resistance is associated with high insulin levels and there is evidence that high circulating insulin may increase the risk of cancer. Therefore, it is possible that cancer risk occurs much earlier than diabetes in insulin-resistant individuals, when insulin levels are high. Overall, the findings support a need for closer monitoring of diabetes among breast cancer survivors, researcher concluded. Although the study found an association between diabetes and breast cancer, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

SOURCE: HealthDay News, December 2012

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Study Supports Link Between Stress, Epileptic Seizures

Scientists have long thought that stress plays a role in epileptic seizures and new evidence suggests that epilepsy patients experience a different brain response when faced with a nerve-wracking situation. Researchers performed functional MRI brain scans during a stressful math exercise on 16 epilepsy patients who pegged stress as a factor in their seizure control and seven patients who did not. While both groups performed similarly on the test, those who perceived stress to have an impact on their epilepsy showed greater brain activation than the others during intimidating parts of the test. A brain disorder producing repeated seizures, epilepsy affects more than 2 million people in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 50 million to 65 million people are affected by the condition worldwide. For the new study, all participants were initially given simple subtraction problems to solve and then a ‘stress task’ during which they performed difficult subtraction. Participants were given positive feedback during the easier portion and negative feedback during the difficult section regardless of how well they were actually performing. The brain activation observed on MRI among those who perceived stress to impact their seizures was seen in several regions, including the left temporal lobe, where their epilepsy originated. No such brain activation was noted in the comparison group. Everyone who treats a lot of seizure patients knows that a good proportion blame stress for any breakthrough seizures. This study is the first to truly show there might be some activation issue in the brain that's different in patients who report this problem. Telling patients to reduce their stress to reduce seizures is a good thing to do. Study author agreed that the research needs to be replicated in larger groups of patients, which may point to new ways of controlling or treating seizures. Eventually, if one can characterize the stress response in patients, maybe this can be a way to target different kinds of therapy to help reduce seizure frequency. While the study found an association between stress response and epileptic seizures, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

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