News Archives

RFK Jr. Says He had a Dead Worm in His Brain. What are These Parasites and How Common are They?
LA Times - 5/8/24
A single patient could have hundreds of these calcifications in their brain, said Dr. Diana Vargas, a neurologist and neuroimmunologist at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Early Technique Switches “Should be Contemplated” Following Failed Thrombectomy Attempts
NeuroNews - 4/17/24
The analysis in question—now published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS) by Diogo Haussen, Pedro Martins (both Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, USA) and colleagues—was predicated on the fact that, in the authors’ view, although switching to a different thrombectomy technique after initially unsuccessful passes is a common occurrence, its effect remains undetermined.

Emory Study Finds Air Pollution Increases Alzheimer’s Risk
AJC - 4/12/24
“We know that air pollution is generally bad for human health, including brain health,” James Lah, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the Emory Healthy Brain Study and an associate professor in the Department of Neurology at Emory’s School of Medicine, said in the press release.

How to Get Started on a Brain-Healthy Diet
Brain & Life - 4/10/24
Diet matters, agrees Karima Benameur, MD, associate professor of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta. “In one study, following a Mediterranean diet was associated with a 33 percent reduced risk of stroke,” she says.

Georgia Families Facing Alzheimer’s Deal with Costs and Care Shortages
AJC - 3/21/24
More than 188,000 Georgia residents aged 65 or older had Alzheimer’s Disease in 2020, according to a new report.

Metro Atlanta Doctor Calls Breakthrough Detecting Alzheimer’s Gamechanger
WSB-TV - 1/26/24
BHC neurologist Dr. Erik Johnson spoke with WSB-TV on how exercise, eating a good diet and staying socially connected can protect your brain against Alzheimer's disease.

Florida Woman One of First to Try Promising Alzheimer's Treatment
Fox 5 - 1/24/24
Last summer, Carolyn Davis' journey to become one of the first patients in Georgia to receive an infusion of a recently FDA-approved Alzheimer's treatment began with diagnosis from a neurologist.

Support for Dementia Caregivers Can Make All the Difference
Advancing Your Health - 1/22/24
When Shaw Skillings’ wife received an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis in 2019, his head was spinning. Babs, then 77 years old, had been experiencing serious memory problems. 

Alzheimer's Disease 'Game Changer' as Progression Slowed with Immunotherapy
Newsweek - 12/14/23
Hope is on the horizon for millions of Alzheimer's disease patients as scientists develop a new target for Alzheimer's treatment: the immune system.

Program for Those with Epilepsy Able to Detect Symptoms of Depression, Suicidality
Healio - 12/13/23
“The unmet needs of mental health intervention in epilepsy, dealing with memory problems is what the program is about, but we also talk about quality of life,” says Taylor Shade, BS, a researcher in the department of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine

Experimental Spinal Cord Implant Helps Parkinson’s Patient Walk in New Study
CNN - 11/6/23
This proof-of-concept study is “exciting” and “impressive,” Dr. Svjetlana Miocinovic, a neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s disease and associate professor at Emory University School of Medicine, said in an email. WSIL-TV

Early Indicators of Alzheimer’s Disease Discovered in Spinal Fluid Proteins
Senior Housing News - 10/11/23
Proteins in cerebrospinal fluid can provide an early indication about the likelihood of future Alzheimer’s-related cognitive decline, according to recently published research findings out of Emory University in Atlanta.

Emory Pioneers ALS Genetic Data Repository with NIH and UMass Chan Medical School
Emory - 10/6/23
This innovative initiative consolidates data from multiple large-scale projects into a single, easily accessible dataset, unlocking the full potential of ALS and FTD research.

When Lying Is a Sign of a Health Problem
AARP Magazine - 8/25/23
Memory is a funny thing. We all get details wrong from time to time, misremember or simply have gaps in recall. 

Emory Sophomore Climbs Mount Kilimanjaro in Her Father’s Honor
Emory - 8/16/23
Emory is a leading clinical and basic research center for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Decades of pioneering research at Emory have been internationally recognized for playing an integral role in the discovery of PD-related brain circuitry changes, paving the way for new surgical therapies now used globally to treat those with the condition.

These Proteins Could Predict Dementia Risk Decades Before Symptoms, New Study Suggests
STAT News - 7/19/23
Can we predict the risk of dementia decades before onset? In a study published in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday, neuroscientists reported a startling clue.

Emory Researchers Call Newly-Approved Alzheimer’s Drug Major Breakthrough
Yahoo! News - 7/8/23
A major breakthrough has been made in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. For the first time ever, the FDA granted full approval to a drug proven to slow the progression of the devastating condition. WSB-TV

Study Using Data Strategies to Detect and Predict Atrial Fibrillation in Post-Stroke Patients Awarded Grant
Emory - 6/13/23
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has awarded a $2.7 million grant to Emory University and Emory Healthcare researchers to study the use of data strategies to detect and predict atrial fibrillation in post-stroke patients.

Jaffar Khan Named Chair of Department of Neurology, Emory University School of Medicine
Emory - 3/22/23
Jaffar Khan, MD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Neurology in the Emory University School of Medicine, effective April 1, 2023. Khan, a professor of neurology, has led the department as interim chair since May 2021.

Disparities in Diagnosis, Treatment for African Americans with Alzheimer’s
Atlanta Voice - 3/17/23
Caring for a loved one who has Alzheimer’s disease can be a daunting proposition. With African Americans disproportionately affected by the disease, education and planning are essential. The Seattle Medium

Carotid Webs: Armed and Dangerous
Stroke Busters - 3/9/23
BHC associate professor of neurology Dr. Diogo Haussen was featured on the podcast Stroke Busters to discuss carotid webs and the dangers associated with the diagnosis.

Emory Enhances 'Clock-drawing Test' Used to Detect Alzheimer's, Other Types of Dementia
11 Alive - 3/6/23
Emory Healthcare is working to improve a test used to detect Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.

Why Evenings can be Harder on People with Dementia—and How to Cope
National Geographic - 3/2/23
When evening approaches, caregivers of dementia patients know to be on their guard for sundowning: a constellation of behaviors that can include restlessness, agitation, aggression, confusion and wandering.

Medical Breakthroughs from Head to Foot
Atlanta Magazine - January 2023
New techniques literally save the brain. 

ALS, a Rare but Deadly Disease, can Silence Anyone. Here’s What to Know.
Washington Post - 11/14/22
Anyone can be affected by the relatively rare amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to experts.

Parkinson's vs. Essential Tremor: What's the Difference?
US News & World Report - 11/10/22
Many people associate involuntary shaking of the body with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that affects an individual's movement. But while this uncontrollable trembling is a hallmark sign of Parkinson's disease, it is often mistaken for another – more common – neurological movement disorder: essential tremor.

Emory Healthcare First in Georgia to Offer Non-Invasive Focused Ultrasound Treatment for Tremor
Emory - 9/14/22
Emory Healthcare is the first health care system in Georgia offering a non-invasive ultrasound treatment for patients living with essential tremor or tremor from Parkinson’s disease.

Find Calm to Carry On
Simply Buckhead - 8/25/22
Physically healthy people who avoid social interactions should seek help, says Dr. Toby Goldsmith, a psychiatrist at the Emory Brain Health Center in Brookhaven, who directs the Emory Women’s Mental Health Program. “It’s important to attempt to maintain some level of normalcy.”

Study Finds Depression is Not Likely Caused by a Chemical Imbalance or Low Serotonin Levels
Fox 5 - 8/23/22
When it comes to understanding what causes major depressive disorder, Emory psychiatrist Dr. Boadie Dunlop says the answer is complicated.

5 Keys to Building an Emotionally Healthy Relationship with Competing
Dance Magazine - 8/15/22
“When competitiveness impacts your mood and your relationships with others, and when it gets in the way of feeling good about yourself, then it’s problematic,” says Dr. Nadine Kaslow, a psychologist who works with dancers and students at Atlanta Ballet.

9 Tips for Getting the Neurologic Care You Need Despite Staffing Shortages
Brain & Life - 8/5/22
If it is going to take six months or longer for an in-person appointment, ask about a virtual visit, especially if it's the initial step in an evaluation, says Taylor B. Harrison, MD, associate professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Is Reversing Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease Possible? A New Study Finds it May Be
GPB - 7/11/22
“Our approach to personalized medicine is with the recognition that there are these lifestyle factors like sleep, exercise and diet,” Levey said. “[Factors] like the degree of social interaction, [and] there are genetic factors, there's ancestry.”  

This Emory Alzheimer’s Researcher Is Working To Boost Diversity in Research
Being Patient - 6/30/22
Alzheimer’s and dementia research is personal to Emory University’s Dr. Monica Parker: Her 96-year-old mother lives with the condition. But, her familial connection is not what directly led to her involvement in research. 

Todd Golde Named Emory’s Newest GRA Scholar, Joins Goizueta Institute @ Emory Brain Health
Emory - 6/29/22
Emory University has named Todd E. Golde, MD, PhD, the new director of the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (CND) in the Goizueta Institute @ Emory Brain Health.

Epilepsy Centers Focus on Unique Needs of Older Adults
Neurology Today - 3/17/22
Diagnosing and treating seizures in older people is important because it could stave off cognitive decline, said Edward Faught, MD, FAAN, professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine.

Study Unveils New Protein-Related Changes in the Brain of Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Medical Xpress - 3/9/22
Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have recently carried out a large-scale analysis of the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

A New Study Helps Untangle the Role of Tau in Dementia
Wired - 1/26/22
Concentrating on other proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases could help scientists find new ways to treat them. “Proteins don’t act in isolation,” says Nicholas Seyfried, an associate professor of biochemistry and neurology at Emory University who studies neurodegeneration. 

Does Edaravone Slow ALS Progression?
Medpage Today - 1/10/22
The FDA approval of edaravone in 2017 was "somewhat of a surprise to many in the ALS scientific and clinical research communities but was seen by patients as new hope for slowing disease," observed Jonathan Glass, MD, and Christina Fournier, MD, MS, both of Emory University in Atlanta.

Emory Receives $6 Million Grant to Accelerate Parkinson’s Disease Treatment Research
Emory - 11/5/21
Emory University researchers received a three-year, $6.3 million grant from the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Collaborative Research Network for research into the motor cortical disturbances caused by Parkinson’s disease.

Doctors Weigh Pros and Cons of Prescribing Hot-Button Alzheimer's Drug
KHN - 7/9/21
Doctors explaining the pros and cons of Aduhelm won’t have a definitive answer. “On an individual basis, it will be absolutely impossible to predict,” said Dr. Allan Levey, director of the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University.

Jaffar Khan Named Interim Chair of Neurology
Emory - 7/1/21
Jaffar Khan, MD, is serving as interim chair of the Department of Neurology in the Emory University School of Medicine. Khan is associate professor of neurology and serves as assistant dean and vice-chair for Medical Education. He assumed the interim chair role in late May.

Raul Nogueira Honored with Albert E. Levy Award for Excellence in Scientific Research
Emory - 6/15/21
Neurologist Raul Nogueira is this year’s recipients of the Albert E. Levy Award for Excellence in Scientific Research, established to recognize the contributions of Emory faculty members to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

"Flicker" Treatment Aims to Slow Alzheimer's Disease with Lights and Sounds
Emory - 6/15/21
Emory and Georgia Tech investigators recently reported the results of the first human feasibility study of the “Flicker” treatment, a non-pharmaceutical approach aimed at slowing Alzheimer’s disease.

A Living Laboratory: Monitoring Alzheimer’s Disease in its Earliest Stages
Advancing Your Health - 6/14/21
”I get so full and so excited to say I’m part of a trailblazing team that’s going to be the benchmark for something that’s going to happen all over the world,” Williams says. “You guys need to put a picture of us on the wall out there and put our names beside it because we’re the first group.”

Out of My Mind: Advances in Brain Tech Spur Calls for 'Neuro Rights'
Thomson Reuters Foundation - 3/29/21
But warnings of "science-fiction scenarios" of for-profit mind control are overblown for a line of research that is still so young, said Karen Rommelfanger, director of the neuroethics program at Emory University in Atlanta.

Prognostic Factors Nullify Positive Link Between Race, Survival in ALS
Healio - 1/11/21
Black patients with ALS experienced a greater median survival than white patients in a large, single-center study, though researchers found no independent association between race and survival after adjusting for ALS prognostic factors.

Genuity Science and Emory University Announce Key Research Agreement Collaboration Designed to Speed Insights into Major Neurodegenerative Diseases
PR Newswire - 1/7/21
Genuity Science, a U.S.-headquartered data, analytics and insights organization, today announces an agreement with one of the world’s leading medical research institutions, Emory University.

Prognostic Factors Nullify Positive Link Between Race, Survival in ALS
Black patients with ALS experienced a greater median survival than white patients in a large, single-center study, though researchers found no independent association between race and survival after adjusting for ALS prognostic factors. (Read More)

Genuity Science and Emory University Announce Key Research Agreement Collaboration Designed to Speed Insights into Major Neurodegenerative Diseases
The collaboration will focus on partnering with Emory on the development of the Genuity Science population clinicogenomic database with an initial focus on neurodegenerative disease, to enable research with pharma and biotech partners. (Read More)

Alzheimers Q&A: Is it Helpful for Some with Alzheimers to Undergo Psychological Treatment?
A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is devastating to the individual, and a mental health professional can help him or her in coping with and accepting the diagnosis. (Read More)

Alzheimers Q&A: Is it Helpful for Some with Alzheimers to Undergo Psychological Treatment?
A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is devastating to the individual, and a mental health professional can help him or her in coping with and accepting the diagnosis. But it also can help deal with behavioral and psychological symptoms. (Read More)

Stopping COVID-19
Emory researchers embark on an epic journey to tackle humanity’s big test. (Read More)

Women Who Work for Pay Have Slower Memory Loss as They Age, Study Finds
Women who have spent time in the paid workforce during their adult lives — regardless of whether they were married or single, with or without children — have slower rates of memory decline after age 60 than women who did not work for pay, a new study has found. (Read More)

Telehealth Visits Soar as Emory Healthcare Keeps Patients and Doctors Connected during Pandemic
“The speed and quality in establishing a robust telehealth practice from very few visits a week to around 12,000 per week has been an amazing transformation,” says Gregory Esper, MD, MBA, associate chief medical officer at Emory Healthcare and lead of Emory’s systemwide telehealth initiatives. “Our thanks go out to the many dedicated team members at Emory Healthcare who have helped us maintain important provider connections with our patients during these challenging times. We are pleased to be able to offer telehealth visits to our patients to meet their needs.” (Read More)

Investigational Drug for Genetic Form of ALS Showing Early Promise, Trial Indicates
An experimental gene-silencing drug designed for a rare, inherited form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has shown promise in a clinical trial conducted at the Emory ALS Center and other medical centers around the world. (Read More)

Grady Doctor Talks Brain Issues with COVID
We’re very concerned about stroke. We understand that there is a tendency for clotting that I think is very apparent now. This virus does create a tendency towards forming blood clots, which could lead to more strokes or more deadly form of strokes, which are in larger blood clots blocking larger arteries. (Read More)

Why Having More Blacks, Latinos in Alzheimer's Trials is Vital 
According to Dr. Monica Parker, a family physician and Emory University researcher, concentrations of tau protein and its phosphorylated isoform in cerebrospinal fluid differed significantly between African American and white individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. (Read More)

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Donation Helps Emory Connect Patients with Families during COVID-19
“Telemedicine, with devices in patient rooms, limits the number of times a nurse or doctor has to enter the room with PPE, thus conserving it, while still providing the patient the best care possible,” says Gregory J. Esper, MD, MBA, associate chief medical officer, Emory Healthcare, and professor and vice chair of clinical affairs in the Department of Neurology at Emory.

Worried about COVID-19, Stroke Patients may Delay Getting Help
In Metro Atlanta and around the US, hospital emergency departments are seeing a drop in non-COVID-19 patients, coming in with stroke and heart attack symptoms. (Read More)

‘A Big Alarm.’ Coronavirus Linked to Strokes in Younger Adults, Experts Say
“It’s definitely reasonable that the coronavirus may have an impact on the risk of having stroke,” Dr. Fadi Nahab, Emory University School of Medicine associate professor, told CBS. “We’ve noticed there is definitely increased clotting risk associated with the virus that’s not typically seen in other viral infections.”

Living Brain Tissue Experiments Raise New Kinds of Ethical Questions
Live bits of brain look like any other piece of meat —  pinkish, solid chunks of neural tissue. But unlike other kinds of tissue or organs donated for research, they hold the memories, thoughts and feelings of a person. (Read More)

How to Donate a Piece of Your Brain to Science - While You're Still Alive
“There's not a uniform way in the in the U.S. really to donate your brain, much less brain tissue,” says Karen Rommelfanger, a neuroethicist at Emory University. But if donors want to do it, she says, they should be able to. “They feel it's a way for their illness to help others.” (Read More)

New Disability Scale Better Assesses ALS Outcomes
A new amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disability scale (ROADS) that uses the mathematically rigorous Rasch methodology outperforms the revised ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-R) in measuring ALS patient-reported outcomes, researchers report.

What is Biohacking and Should You Give This Silicon Valley Trend a Try?
You don’t have to be in Silicon Valley using some never-heard-of technology and supplements to biohack your brain. That’s according to Karina Benameur, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Emory University, who teaches the open course Biohacking Your Brain’s Health and shares the view that biohacking can absolutely consists of really anything that enhances brain function. (Read More)

Meet Belfast's 'Dementia-Friendly Barber'
"The fascinating thing about dementia is that while it's an epidemic and so many people are experiencing it, each individual's experience is going to be very different," said Carolyn Clevenger, clinical director for the Emory Integrated Memory Care Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. (Read More)

Arrival of the Bees
This is not the story it was supposed to be, not by a long shot. It was supposed to be about brain research, with an emphasis on the Emory Healthy Aging Study. But then a blood clot unleashed a beehive in my brain. This story begins with the bees. (Read More)

AJC on Campus: Emory Gets Major Alzheimer's Research Grant
Emory University got a major check last week for some important research. Georgia’s largest private university announced it will be the lead institution for a major $37.5 million federal grant to speed up the development of new therapies and technologies to slow, prevent and cure Alzheimer’s. (Read More)

Major New Emory Grant will Accelerate Search for Alzheimer's Treatments
Emory University has received a major tool in the fight to discover new treatments for Alzheimer’s. The university has been selected as the lead institution for a major $37.5 million federal grant to speed up the development of new therapies and technologies to slow, prevent and cure the progressive disease that affects more than 5.8 million people in the United States, including 150,000 in Georgia. (Read More)

NIA Announces Major $73 Million Alzheimer's Grant, Emory Leads International Drug Discovery Center
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is awarding approximately $37 million over five years to a team of international researchers, led by Emory University, to help accelerate the development of promising new therapies that will effectively treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD). NIA is part of the National Institutes of Health. (Read More)

Scientists Rethink Alzheimer's, Diversifying the Drug Search (NY Post)
When researchers at the University of Kentucky compare brains donated from people who died with dementia, very rarely do they find one that bears only Alzheimer’s trademark plaques and tangles — no other damage. (Read More)

Scientists Rethink Alzheimer's, Diversifying the Drug Search (Washington Post)
When researchers at the University of Kentucky compare brains donated from people who died with dementia, very rarely do they find one that bears only Alzheimer’s trademark plaques and tangles — no other damage. (Read More)

Awareness and Money Raised from the Ice Bucket Challenge Helps Georgia Families Five Years Later
Five years later, money raised from the first Ice Bucket Challenge has gone a long way in helping fight ALS. (Read More)

Emory Neurologist Awarded $2.1 Million Grant to Research Sleep Disorders
Emory neurologist Lynn Marie Trotti has earned a five-year, $2.1 million grant for clinical research on sleep disorders. he grant, issued by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, will give Trotti and her colleagues with the Emory Sleep Center the chance to build on decades of research regarding the mechanisms behind the antibiotic clarithromycin, a generic drug typically used to treat skin, ear, sinus or lung infections. (Read More)

Fed Up with Washington, ALS Advocates Consider ACT UP's Take-No-Prisoners Approach
Next Wednesday, a cadre of ALS patients will gather for a protest outside the FDA’s headquarters in suburban Maryland with a clear message: “No More Excuses.” (Read More)

Elevated Levels of "Bad" Cholesterol Linked to Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease
“The big question is whether there is a causal link between cholesterol levels in the blood and Alzheimer’s disease risk,” said Dr. Thomas Wingo, a neurologist with the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Emory University School of Medicine. 

High Levels of Bad Cholesterol Tied to Early-Onset Alzheimer's
Most of us know that high levels of “bad” cholesterol in our blood can increase our risk of developing cardiovascular problems. Now, a new study gives us another reason to keep cholesterol levels in check. High cholesterol may also play a role in the development of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, a research team has found.

Bad Cholesterol, Rare Alzheimer's may be Linked
Here's another reason to keep your cholesterol under control: New research suggests that LDL, or "bad," cholesterol may play a role in the development of early-onset Alzheimer's. (Read More)

High LDL Linked to Early-Onset Alzheimer's
Researchers with the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Emory University have found a link between high LDL cholesterol levels and early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The results could help doctors understand how the disease develops and what the possible causes are, including genetic variation. (Read More)

The Alzheimer's-Cholesterol Connection
Elevated low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels were tied to a higher probability of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, a case series showed. (Read More)

People with High Cholesterol are at Higher Risk of Early Alzheimer's
High cholesterol raises the risks of early-onset Alzheimer's disease and may even cause the devastating brain disorder, new research suggests. (Read More)

High LDL Linked to Early-Onset Alzheimer's
According to Dr. Thomas Wingo, lead author of the study, the results show that LDL cholesterol levels may play a causal role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. (Read More)

High LDL Linked to Early-Onset Alzheimer's
Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center have found a link between high LDL cholesterol levels and early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The results could help doctors understand how the disease develops and what the possible causes are, including genetic variation. The study findings appear in the May 28 issue of JAMA Neurology. (Read More)

Learn About Memory Loss and Dementia on May 30
The South Cobb Regional Library, 805 Clay Road in Mableton, will have a free presentation on memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s on May 30 at 11 am. The speaker is Dr. Monica W. Parker of the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University. (Read More)

Doctors Have More Time Than Thought to Treat Stroke Patients, Study Suggests
The new study "reinforces the importance of individualizing acute stroke treatment and not simply excluding patients because of the time they were last seen normal," Dr. Fadi Nahab, medical director for the Stroke Program at Emory University Hospital, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email. (Read More)

Experimental Treatment Could be "Game-Changing" for Genetic ALS
An experimental treatment for the rapidly progressive disease ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, has been called potentially "game-changing." The treatment, called tofersen, was found to slow the decline of muscular function associated with a genetic form of ALS in a study to be presented next week at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. (Read More)

Do You Know ALS? Meet Ed
Upon diagnosis, Ed was immediately enrolled in a clinical trial happening at the time at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital. He received two stem cell transplants into his spine’s grey matter, which required two surgeries — and a lot of time at Emory. (Read More)

After the Diagnosis: A Guide to Alzheimer's Disease
“The gold standard for diagnosing Alzheimer’s is taking a look at a piece of the brain under the microscope postmortem,” says Dr. Chadwick Hales, an assistant professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine and a neurologist at Emory Brain Health Center in Atlanta. “But there are some tests you can do in living people,” he says. (Read More)

Parkinson’s Expert on What the Latest Research Is Telling Us About the Disease
Globally, more than 10 million people have Parkinson’s Disease. About 60,000 will be diagnosed with the disease in this country this year. While Parkinson’s has historically been associated with motor function symptoms like tremors, rigidity and a shuffling gait, several cognitive issues are also related to the disease. (Read More)

Alzheimer's Drug Failure Leaves Scientists Seeking New Direction
The drugs have mostly focused on large plaques visible in the autopsied brains of deceased Alzheimer's patients, he said, but recent data show that the toxic form of amyloid is smaller clusters of proteins that should be targeted instead. "I think it's the right target," saidLary Walker, an experimental neuropathologist at Emory University, adding that "every risk factor we know" for Alzheimer's increases or affects amyloid in some way. (Read More)

Alzheimer's Failure Puts Efforts to Find a Cure in Doubt
Some researchers are still enthusiastic about the amyloid idea despite the growing number of setbacks. The drugs tried so far have failed because they have been hitting the wrong form of the compound, according to Lary Walker, an experimental neuropathologist at Emory University. (Read More)

Rate of Dementia Deaths has More Than Doubled
Emory University School of Medicine assistant professor Chad Hales, who was not involved in the report, told CNN that “diagnosing dementia begins with a good clinical history and exam, brain imaging and lab studies to ensure no other conditions are causing the symptoms.” But “the current gold standard,” he told the network, “is postmortem diagnosis with neuropathological confirmation,” meaning the disease is best diagnosed after death. (Read More)

Alzheimer's Grows Sharply in Georgia - and Faster than National Average
Dr. Monica Parker, a geriatric doctor at Emory Healthcare, said an early diagnosis can help someone get access to more treatment options to help lessen symptoms, allow someone an opportunity to participate in clinical trials and give families more time to assemble a long-term health care plan, review legal documents and set up a support network. (Read More)

Atlanta Doctor Takes on the Alzheimer's Challenge
When The Goizueta Foundation funded a large research project at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University five years ago, a major transformation took place, according to Emory neurologist and neuroscientist Allan Levey, director of the ADRC. (Read More)

Education Won't Help Much When it Comes to Dementia
Emory University's Dr. Aliza P. Wingo, a psychiatrist and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Dr. Thomas S. Wingo, a neurologist and an assistant professor of neurology and human genetics, described the study as "thorough" while noting that the findings "may not be easy to generalize beyond the people they studied given the relatively old age of participants and many years of educational attainment most of these participants had." (Read More)

What is Lewy Body Dementia?
When CNN founder Ted Turner made the bombshell announcement on “CBS Sunday Morning” in September that he had Lewy body dementia, the general reaction was: “What’s Lewy body dementia?” (Read More)

Alzheimer's Attack on the Brain may Vary with Race
Research on Alzheimer’s has mainly focused on Caucasians. New findings, however, suggest the disease process that leads to dementia may differ in African–Americans. According to a study published Monday in JAMA Neurology, the brains of African–Americans diagnosed with Alzheimer’s have less buildup of a protein called tau—one of the two hallmark proteins that characterize the disease. (Read More)

Lenora Higginbotham Graduates with Inaugural Class of The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders
As part of the first class of The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), Lenora Higginbotham, MD, received a two-year training in movement disorders clinical care and research at Emory University. 

New $25 Million Goizueta Gift Catapults Alzheimer's Disease Research in Georgia
The Goizueta Foundation has made a new $25 million gift to Emory University's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, on top of $29 million it has given the Center since 2014, for a total of $54 million.

Local Research Key to Critical Alzheimer's Battle
The National Institute on Aging funds Alzheimer’s disease centers at major medical institutions, including Atlanta’s own Emory University. Researchers at these 27 centers are on an increasingly critical mission to improve the diagnosis and care for people living with Alzheimer’s, as well as to find a way to cure and possibly prevent the disease. (Read More)

Do African-Americans have More, or Different, Alzheimer's Disease? Too Little Data to Tell
One study is being led by William Hu of Emory University, Atlanta. Hu recalled that his interest in biologic differences was sparked during his neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where researchers incorporate CSF tests into their diagnostic workups for people with clinical signs of Alzheimer’s disease. (Read More)

Scientists are Offering Insights on How to Sleep Better and Tackle its Many Disorders
Dr. David Rye, professor of neurology at The Emory Sleep Centre and director of research for Emory Healthcare's Program in Sleep says people with idiopathic hypersomnia feel sleepy all the time because of “what has been referred to as an endozepine or a naturally occurring bodily substance, detectable in one's cerebrospinal fluid." (Read More)

JO Gives Inc. Donates to ALS Research
Approximately 5,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with ALS each year and the average survival time is three years after diagnosis. Since its inception in 2016, the Janice Overbeck Real Estate Team’s non-profit JO Gives Inc. has been making donations to Emory University’s ALS Research Center annually. (Read More)

Free Memory Screenings, Support for Families at Huge Alzheimer's Conference Coming to Atlanta
The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s (AFA) will host a large free conference next month to offer support, resources and information for people with Alzheimer’s disease, their family members and others interested in learning more about the disease. (Read More) 

Why Diagnosis, Treatment of Dementia can be Difficult
Just like there’s no one treatment to stop Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks, it often takes more than one test to confirm a diagnosis.“Diagnosing Alzheimer’s involves a complete assessment that considers all possible causes,” according to the Alzheimer’s Association. (Read More)

Emory Renames Center Goizuetta Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (AJC)
In May 2018, The Goizueta Foundation made a $25 million grant to the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center dedicated to the development of a Clinical Trials Unit and to support the Neuroinflammation Discovery Unit. (Read More)

Emory Renames Center Goizuetta Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Enters Next Phase of Research
Emory University has renamed its Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in recognition of The Goizueta Foundation’s ongoing support for transformational research toward developing treatment for the disease. In May 2018, The Goizueta Foundation made a $25 million grant to the ADRC dedicated to the development of a Clinical Trials Unit and to support the Neuroinflammation Discovery Unit. (Read More)

Hospital Readmissions Drop for Stroke Patients
"Intuitively, you would think that the higher volume of stroke patients a hospital treats, the better the quality of care is and the better their outcomes," observed Adam Webb, MD, of Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study. "In fact, this is just the opposite for readmission in non-teaching hospitals." (Read More)

AI-Powered Brain Emulation is Changing Our Definition of Death
“We don’t have a really great way of determining when brain function is gone and when that is irreversible. We can do a pretty good job but we’re not always perfect,” says Adam Webb, a neurologist at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, who experienced first-hand the apparent reanimation of this patient.  (Read More) 

Stroke Care Better at GWTG Hospitals
This study has several limitations, observed Adam Webb, MD, of Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Participating in GWTG-Stroke is voluntary, so it may be that "the presence of these engaged clinicians and leaders would have been sufficient to improve the quality of stroke care at these hospitals even in the absence of GWTG-Stroke," he wrote in an accompanying editorial. (Read More)

2.0 is Nice, but I'm Still Searching for My Real Voice
“The tongue is a very complicated muscle,” said Dr. Hyder Jinnah, who is treating me at the Emory University Brain Health Center in Atlanta. (Read More)

Many Men don't Realize They have Migraine Pain
Headache pain is one of the top 5 reasons people end up in the ER.  But only about half of the 37 million migraine sufferers in the US have ever been formally diagnosed with the neurological disorder, according to the National Headache Foundation. About 3 times as many women as men experience migraine attacks. (Read More)

Worried About Memory Loss? Cut Your Blood Pressure
“For middle-aged and older individuals, this underscores the importance of having regular checkups and working with your doctor to ensure that proper blood pressure levels are achieved, and that blood pressure levels are achieved at closer to 120/80 versus the traditional 140,” says Whitney Wharton, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. Wharton has studied the relationship between blood pressure medications and Alzheimer’s. (Read More)

The Search for Better Animal Models of Alzheimer's Disease
Although mice have been productive workhorses for research on Alzheimer’s disease, the difficulties that researchers have experienced in translating promising findings from mice into successful trials in people are driving the field to explore other options for animal models. “The predictive value of transgenic mouse models for therapeutics has been limited,” says Lary Walker, a neuroscientist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. (Read More)

Georgia's First Mobile Stroke Unit is Now in Service 
Grady Health System, Emory University School of Medicine, and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association unveiled Georgia's first mobile stroke unit – an ambulance designed to take cutting edge stroke care directly to patients. (Read More)

Georgia's First Mobile Telestroke Unit Ready to Roll in Atlanta
The telestroke unit, a mobile health program launched by the Grady Health Network and Emory University School of Medicine, aims to use telemedicine to bring life-saving stroke treatment to wherever the patient is located.

Grady: New Mobile Stroke Unit
"Using a sophisticated tele-medicine platform, our goal is to extend the vast experience and proven expertise of our stroke specialists to participating network hospitals, giving each and every stroke patient in the areas serviced by our network partners the best chance of survival and living an independent quality of life," says Marcus Stroke Network director Michael Frankel, MD, professor & director of vascular neurology, Emory University School of Medicine, chief of neurology and director of Grady's Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center. (Read More)

The Radio Man without a Voice
If you're scanning through radio stations, you may soon hear a familiar but oddly mechanical voice reporting the latest news from Capitol Hill. Cox radio veteran Jamie Dupree is back on the air Monday after a two-year absence. But the melodious tones that graced the airways for over 30 years sound a bit different today. (Read More)

With My Voice Gone, Time for Jamie Dupree 2.0
Other news organizations asked questions as well, led by CNN’s medical unit. Producer Sandee LaMotte – who listened to me on WSB in Atlanta – helped me find a neurological expert at the Emory University Brain Health Center who had actually treated similar cases. (Read More)

Your Stroke Questions Answered by Dr. Fadi Nahab
During May, Emory Healthcare likes to promote awareness and education about National Stroke Month. Below are the most common stroke questions answered by Fadi Nahab, MD. (Read More)

Raul Nogueira Receives Health Care Hero Award
Raul Nogueira was honored by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in its Health Care Heroes issue with the Health Care Researcher/Innovator award for helping create the FAST-ED app, which enables first responders to make the best decisions for stroke patients. (Read More) 

ALS Patients Losing Time as They Wait for Insurers to Cover a Pricey New Drug
Dr. Jonathan Glass, an Emory University neurologist, discusses Radicava, a new drug for ALS approved last fall by the FDA. (Read More)

Playing Football Young may Mean Earlier Cognitive, Emotional Problems
Emory Brain Health Center neurologist Chad Hales was interviewed about a new study that finds the earlier American football players with the degenerative disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), started tackle football, the more vulnerable they were to emotional and cognitive problems. Hales says until there is a test or some kind of biomarkers that can pinpoint when and how CTE starts, it's going to be a challenge to fully understand the nature of the disease. (Read More)

Why are so Many Americans Sleep Deprived?
According to Dr. Nancy Collop of the Emory Sleep Center, sleep deprived people often make a good night's rest a low priority. "Sleep becomes the thing they can give up the easiest I guess,” says Dr. Collop. “It may not be the best thing for their health, but that's often what happens.” Dr. Collop says people who work two jobs, or work non-traditional hours sacrifice sleep for a social life. (Read More)

Regular Exercise can Prevent Older Adults from Falling
Researchers from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recently conducted a review, published in the Journal of the America Medical Association, to determine the best practices to avoid falls among people age 65 and older. “It’s abundant evidence,” said Madeleine Hackney, geriatrics professor at Emory University, who was not a part of the trial. “As we get older, we lose muscle mass. The way to get stronger is to strengthen them on a regular basis.” (Read More)

New Drug Could Stop Chronic Migraines without Side Effects, Study Finds
Dr. Michael R. Silver, an assistant professor of neurology at Emory University, comments on a study by German researchers about a new migraine medication. The study will be presented at the upcoming meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. (Read More)

Work at a Desk All Day? Sitting too Long Linked to Thinning of Brain Region Critical for Memory, Study Says
The medial temporal lobe, which includes the hippocampus, is the region of the brain critical for new memory formation. Medial temporal atrophy, such as thinning, has been associated with memory loss and has been used to predict Alzheimer’s disease, according to Dr. Joe Nocera, an assistant professor in neurology at Emory University who was not involved in the UCLA study. (Read More)

Night Owls have 10 Percent Higher Mortality Risk, Study Suggests
A study by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Surrey found that "night owls" are at increased risk of mortality from all causes. "The results are provocative, but they can tell us very little about why the mortality rate is higher in night owls. The study is not experimental and does not show what benefits, if any, might occur by changing one's schedule," said Dr. Donald L. Bliwise, director of the program in sleep, aging and chronobiology at Emory School of Medicine. (Read More)

Marcus Foundation Gives $15 Million to Help Fight Scourge of Strokes
The Marcus Foundation has donated $15 million to create a network for stroke care to help reduce disability and death from the disease in the Southeast. A wide swath of the South is known as the Stroke Belt, due to the 11-state region’s unusually high incidence of strokes and other forms of cardiovascular disease. (Read More)

Marcus Foundation Gives $15 Million to Create Marcus Stroke Network
The Atlanta-based Marcus Foundation gave $15 million to establish the Marcus Stroke Network, a partnership that includes Grady Health System, Emory University School of Medicine, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association and Boca Raton Regional Hospitals. (Read More)

Stem Cell Implants Improve Monkeys' Grip After Spinal Cord Surgery
Emory neurologist Jonathan Glass was quoted discussing a study recently published in Nature Medicine: “This type of cellular therapy, though still in its infancy, may eventually be a reasonable approach to treating central nervous system injury and possibly even neurodegenerative disease in humans." (Read More)

Transforming Memory Care
Open since 2015, the IMCC has quickly become a model of care for patients like Joung. It is the first nurse-led clinic in the nation specializing in primary care for dementia patients and the first nurse-led medical home at Emory Healthcare. (Read More)

Extra Hours for Stroke Treatment
Current guidelines for stroke treatment recommend clot removal only within six hours of the onset of symptoms. But a milestone study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that clot removal up to 24 hours after a stroke led to significantly reduced disability for some patients. (Read More)

Lowering blood pressure may lower Alzheimer's risk
“Hypertension may be a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, in contrast to other known risk factors such as advanced age, female gender, and family history,” she says. “Therefore, there is the ability to make lifestyle changes.” (Read More)  

Dinner with a Doctor: Migraines
A breeze drifts across the restaurant patio, where diners are clustered around long tables in bright green chairs that match the park-like setting. As the group looks over the dinner menu, neurologist Gregory Esper cautions everyone to make their selections carefully. (Read More)

Telemedicine Spreads in Georgia
Dr. Gregory Esper of Emory said telehealth success areas include dermatology, eye care and electronic ICUs. More than 6,000 Georgians have received eyeglasses through the VA’s telemedicine program, Esper added.

Stroke Treatment Guidelines Encourage Broader Use of Clot-Removal Procedure
Emory neurologist, Raul Noguiera’s DAWN trial is referenced in an article about new stroke-treatment guidelines announced this week by the American Stroke Association (ASA). Findings from the DAWN trial impacted the guideline revisions that extend to up to 24 hours the time in which stroke patients can be treated with thrombectomy, a clot removal procedure. (Read More)

Finding a Better Way to Spot Memory Loss/Dementia
It took Andy and Beth Bussey years to find The Emory Brain Health Center in Atlanta, and an answer to why the 67-year-old retired Columbus father of 4 was struggling to keep up with conversations, or switch gears. (Read More)

Concussions/CTE and Football
Emory Brain Health Center neurologist Chadwick Hales discusses new research about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a conversation about players' safety and the appropriate age to start playing football. (Read More)

Georgia Man Fights to Regain His Ability to Speak
A patient with a rare genetic disorder was treated by Dr. Stewart Factor, director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Program, at the Emory Brain Health Center. (Read More)

Idiopathic Hypersomnia: No, Coffee Won't Cure My Hypersomnia
“Because [IH’s symptoms] exist on the spectrum with things that healthy humans experience, they can be mislabeled and misunderstood to the point where some people may never get medical evaluation,” Lynn Marie Trotti, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Emory University, tells SELF. (Read More)

Ultrasound Could Offer Noninvasive Treatment for Parkinson's and Depression
Emory neuroscientist Helen Mayberg discusses preclinical research from Stanford University using ultrasound as a noninvasive treatment for neurological disorders. “The idea that, with a very carefully designed dose, you could actually deliver [focused ultrasound] and stimulate the brain in the place you want and modulate a circuit rather than damage it, is a really important proof of principle,” said Mayberg. (Read More)

Human Head Transplants are about to Happen in China: but Where are the Bodies Coming From?
Karen S. Rommelfanger, director of the Neuroethics Program at Emory’s Center for Ethics, coauthored an op-ed on the ethics surrounding China’s announcement that a scientist there would attempt to perform a human head transplant. (Read More)

Head Transplants: Sergia Canavero is about to Perform the First Human Surgery - and There's Nothing to Stop Him
Karen Rommelfanger, neuroethics program director at Emory University Center for Ethics in Georgia, raises one other intriguing caveat: the possibility that this operation is a sanitized version of murder. “If you still have a brain that’s alive...then to take that head off and take the body away, are we possibly killing someone?” she says. (Read More)

Teen Imprisoned by Rare Brain Disorder Finds Freedom 
Emory Brain Health Center neurologist, Stewart Factor, MD, and neurosurgeon, Robert Gross, MD, are featured in a story about the treatment of a young man with a rare brain disorder. (Read More)

What Health and Medical Experts Say About the Advice in Tom Brady's New Book
Dr. Karen Rommelfanger, program director of Emory University’s neuroethics program at the Center for Ethics and an assistant professor in the department of neurology, said the process Brady is describing is specific and applicable to him and how his body works. (Read More)

North Georgia Couple Fights Parkinson's Disease
Emory Brain Health Center neurologist Stewart Factor is interviewed about the importance of physical activity to help slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease in a story featuring one of his patients. (Read More)

Study gives new insight into how brain cells die in Alzheimer's
Dr. David Katz and Dr. Allan Levey discuss their research published in Nature Communications showing that removal of the regulatory gene LSD1 in mice induces changes in gene activity similar to Alzheimer's disease. (Read More)

Potential Breakthrough for CTE
Emory Brain Health Center neurologist Chadwick Hales, MD, PhD, discusses new research showing that CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) could eventually be diagnosed in living patients. (Read More)

Mary Rose Taylor Faces Greatest Challenge Yet
Alzheimer’s, the disease that took her second husband, developer Mack Taylor, prompted her to devote her life to fighting that illness, Parkinson’s and other intractable neurological disorders. She directed time, resources and her networking ability toward helping Dr. Allan Levey and the Emory University Department of Neurology rise to the challenge. Then in 2014, she began experiencing worrying problems— difficulty swallowing, a forgotten word. Her friend Jonathan Glass, who is also director of Emory’s ALS Center, sat across from her at a Starbucks and recognized the symptoms. (Read More)

Telemedicine in Your Neurology Clinic
In neurology, the most common use of telemedicine is in acute settings, but according to Jaime Hatcher-Martin, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, “Telemedicine is also being used to evaluate patients in nursing homes or remote sites, including rural areas in the United States and in remote locations in other countries to determine which patients need to be transferred to higher level care.” (Read More)

PNES Mimics Epilepsy
Professor Daniel Drane of Emory University, discusses a condition called psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, or PNES. “It often occurs in people who have experienced trauma, so maybe they’ve developed a maladaptive way of dealing with the stress,” explained professor Drane.

Treating Movement Disorders with Telemedicine: Getting Started
Jaime Hatcher-Martin, MD, PhD, a movement disorders specialist at Emory University Hospital and the founder of Emory's movement disorders telemedicine clinic, shares her personal experience with telemedicine and provides some guidance for clinicians who might be interested in exploring this treatment option to improve their patients' access to care. (Read More)

Eye Exams can Reveal Serious Diseases
The latest research even suggests that sophisticated imaging technology, like retinal scans, could spot early signs of Alzheimer's -- specifically the protein beta-amyloid, which causes the characteristic plaques in the brain.  "This is an exciting area of research," says Dr. Allan Levey, professor of neurology at Emory University's Brain Health Center. "It suggests that the retina itself is a place where some of the amyloid deposits may actually be developing, just as they do in the brain."

Heartburn Meds Don't Raise Alzheimer's Risk
Drugs used to treat acid reflux and ulcers don't appear to boost the risk of dementia, as has been previously suspected, new research suggests. Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta analyzed a National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center database for the study. "The results of this study do not confirm recent reports that the use of PPIs is linked to greater risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease," wrote the researchers, led by Felicia Goldstein of the Department of Neurology at Emory's School of Medicine. (Read More)

Emory Doctors Discover Genetic Marker for Resilience
Neurologist and geneticist Dr. Thomas Wingo is one of the directors of an Emory Brain Health Center study within the Grady Trauma Project. “It shows a genetic basis for why some people are able to bounce back from adverse events.” Co-director Dr. Aliza Wingo said. “Positive emotion and purpose in life, those are the building blocks of resilience. They’re also the building blocks of psychological well being.”

The Local Take Talks About the Emory Healthy Aging Study and the Emory Brain Health Center
Dr. Aaron Anderson, assistant professor of neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine, speaks about healthy aging and using research to understand what factors can lead to better outcomes. Dr. Monica Parker from the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, speaks about the medical research being done in Atlanta. She encourages listeners to ask their primary care physicians about research available for any medical challenge that they may face. (Read More)

Stem Cell Study Offers Hope for ALS
An experimental study at Emory University involves injecting stem cells directly into ALS patients’ spines. Drs. Nicholas Boulis, Jonathan Glass and a team at Emory began looking into stem cells more than 7 years ago. “We’re not repairing or replacing motor neurons, we’re trying to protect them and induce them to heal and grow back,” says Boulis, a neurosurgeon with Emory Healthcare. (Read More)

New Research on Strokes Extends Window for Treatment
Leading medical researchers have found that treating many severe-stroke patients as long as 24 hours after a devastating stroke can restore a relatively normal life to some people whose brains had been viewed as badly injured. In results presented at the European Stroke Organization conference, the research neurologists said that pulling a clot from major arteries to the brain can carry powerful effects many hours later than conventional wisdom had dictated. Co-principal investigator, Raul G. Nogueira of Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital estimated that “about 30 to 40%” of the most severe stroke patients “might fit in this new window.” (Read More)

Can a Pill Make You More Moral? 
Neuroscientists want to understand how morality functions in the brain but neuroscience doesn't tell us what we should do. "Humans do that," Karen Rommelfanger, Emory University neuroethicist, told Gizmodo. (Read More)

Clot Removal Therapy Effective Outside Six-Hour Window for Some Stroke Patients
The trial sets a new selection paradigm showing for the first time that looking at patients fulfilling certain imaging and clinical criteria is a much better approach to determining whether patients will benefit from endovascular therapy as opposed to adhering to strict time windows, noted Raul Nogueira, MD, professor at Emory University School of Medicine, and director of neuroendovascular service and neurocritical care service at Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center, Grady Memorial Hospital. (Read More)

"Lets Put on a Show!" Theater, Arts May Improve Brain Function
Focused attention can be beneficial for the aging population, because it can help to block external stimuli, says Whitney Wharton, a cognitive neuroscientist who specializes in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders at Emory’s Brain Health Center. (Read More)

’Forget Me Not' grandson pens play after grandmother's battle with Alzheimer’s
Davis wrote ‘Forget Me Not’ to reach out to the African American community, a group twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s but less likely to get help. Dr. Monica Parker from Emory Brain Health Center explains, “Quite frankly, most family members don’t recognize what it is when they see it, they do what they think they can do. They never consult a doctor. They just deal with it.” Before the play begins, Drs. Parker and James Lah with Emory Brain Health talk to the audience, explaining that taking part in research means becoming part of the solution.

Emory neurologist receives 2017 Pierre Gloor Award
The American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS) has presented the 2017 Pierre Gloor Award to Charles M. Epstein, MD, professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. (Read More)

Perimenopausal lipid changes predict subclinical carotid plaque
Dr. Fadi Nahab, medical director of the Stroke Program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, commented on a study about the predictive value of lipid changes in perimenopausal women. "The results may encourage providers caring for women during this period to monitor lipid levels at least once a year," he said in an email. (Read More)

The man who beat Lou Gehrig’s disease
When diagnosed in 2010 by Jonathan Glass, a doctor at the Emory ALS Center, Ted Harada was deteriorating quickly. What saved him was an experimental ALS treatment pioneered by doctors at the Emory ALS Center, in which doctors opened his spinal cord and injected neural stem cells directly into diseased areas, where the pools of motor neurons affected by ALS are found. (Read More)

As nation ages, dementia is becoming a significant economic burden
Whitney Wharton and Joe Nocera, assistant professors of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, are taking part in the multi-center EXERT Study that is testing whether physical exercise can slow the progression of early AD. They use brain imaging and spinal fluid to look for AD symptoms before and after participants complete an 18-month exercise program at a local YMCA. (Read More)

How hearing 'twist my arm' engages the brain
Listening to metaphors involving arms or legs loops in a region of the brain responsible for visual perception of those body parts, scientists have discovered. More evidence for 'grounded cognition': the idea that comprehension of abstract concepts in the brain is built upon concrete experiences. "The EBA is part of the extrastriate visual cortex, and it was known to be involved in identifying body parts," says senior author Krish Sathian, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, rehabilitation medicine, and psychology at Emory University. "We found that the metaphor selectivity of the EBA matches its visual selectivity." (Read More)

Learning to be a fighter: Young mom struggles with Parkinson’s
People under the age of 40 make up about 15 percent of all Parkinson's cases, according to Stewart Factor, a neurologist and director of the Movement Disorders Program at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. "We call that young-onset Parkinson's, while under the age of 20 is juvenile-onset of Parkinson's disease," Factor said. "That's much less common." (Read More)

$5.4M for Parkinson's Research
Emory will receive more than $1 million each year for the next five years from the NIH, renewing the agency's support for Emory's Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence in Parkinson's Disease Research. The center's ongoing mission is to develop better Parkinson's treatments that have fewer side effects, train researchers and clinicians, and educate the public about this disease. "This funding will allow us to look at some of the least understood brain circuit abnormalities in Parkinson's disease," says Thomas Wichmann, center director. (Read More)

Emory Healthy Brain Study launches to learn more about Alzheimer’s disease
"Our goal is to learn as much as we can about who is most likely to get Alzheimer's so that we can develop new treatments that may prevent them from ever getting the disease," says James Lah, MD, PhD, the study's principal investigator and associate professor and vice-chair of the Department of Neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine. "Alzheimer's disease will likely become the leading cause of death among seniors, so it's important that we get as many people, from as many different backgrounds, to participate in this research in order to have ample data for comparisons across demographics," adds Monica Parker, MD, assistant professor of neurology and education core member of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. (Read More)

85-year-old Georgia grandmother battles Parkinson's with boxing
Emory School of Medicine assistant professor of neurology Dr. Joe Nocera says research shows intense physical exercise like boxing may slow the progression of Parkinson's and protect the brain. He says boxing requires very deliberate, fluid movements and steps. "So, this exercise really focuses them on being intentional with their movements."

Optimal approach for preserving cognition in hypertension remains unclear
Dr. Felicia Goldstein from Emory University School of Medicine, who recently detailed the relationship between cognitive functioning and current guidelines for hypertension in older adults, told Reuters Health, "Hypertension is a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, in contrast to other known risk factors such as advanced age, female gender, and family history. Therefore, there is the ability to make lifestyle changes that can attenuate the cognitive effects of hypertension."(Read More)

How brain-machine connections can help paraplegics move again
Emory University neuroethicist Karen Rommelfanger understands why many people find the promise of connecting brains so compelling. "The idea of being able to touch somebody really far away — touch someone's thoughts from far away — is an exciting appeal." But she says that both in science and on the consumer side, there are questions that need to be asked along the way. (Read More)

Does this headline look blue to you? Then it might also feel like a triangle.
A study published in the European Journal of Neuroscience suggests that simply having one type of synesthesia for example, seeing colors in letters of the alphabet is enough to blur the lines between other senses as well. "It shows that something about their synesthesia is spilling over into another domain," said Dr. Krish Sathian, a neurologist at Emory University. (Read More)

Caregiving in Connecticut: Navigating financial burdens and emotional hardship
Whitney Wharton, a cognitive neuroscientist and assistant professor of neurology at Emory University discusses how caregivers can continue to care for their loved ones and avoid negative impacts on their own personal health. (Start listening at 39:04)

Atlanta lab plays critical role in ALS gene discovery
Project MinE's U.S. DNA collection site in Atlanta received $1 million from the ALS Association following the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge. "This new gene will allow us to investigate the biology behind this gene," Dr. Jonathan Glass, director of the Emory ALS Center said. "This is a baby step forward, and lots of baby steps create a giant leap." (Read More)

Local clinic to practice medicine via web
Dr. Jaime Hatcher-Martin, an assistant professor of neurology at Emory in Atlanta, is kicking off a pilot telemedicine project at Emory at LaGrange. The telemedicine project will be open to people with movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, neurological disorders, tremors and more. (Read More)

Life Lessons: Alzheimer's and the biggest mistake caregivers can make
Cognitive neuroscientist in the Department of Neurology at Emory University, Whitney Wharton, studies Alzheimer's from the patient's side and the people who care for them. Wharton says one of the biggest mistakes caregivers make is not caring for themselves.

Pat Summitt's public fight spurs research support
Pat Summitt's fight against Alzheimer's disease continues, and it has even gained momentum since her death. "Certainly in the last five years, the amount of support from the National Institutes of Health for Alzheimer's research has just skyrocketed," said Allan Levey, the director of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. "Is that all due to Pat? Obviously not. But she was part of that campaign to raise awareness, for sure." (Read More)

Stem cells deemed safe for ALS patient
Scientists report that stem cell therapy appears to be safe for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but it's not yet clear whether the treatment provides any benefits. Dr. Jonathan Glass, one of the study authors and leader of Emory University's ALS Center, called it an important start in developing a therapy for the incurable disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "We can say this procedure is doable in ALS patients," Glass said. "Now we have to test whether it's actually therapeutic." (Read More)

Common medication provides insight into brain abnormalities
Hyder A. Jinnah, professor of neurosurgery, human genetics & pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, discusses a common medication used for the symptomatic treatment of dystonia that has been shown to target brain abnormalities in the cerebral cortex in patients with cervical dystonia (CD), according to a study released at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders.

Muhammad Ali had a special relationship with Atlanta
The other important relationship Ali had with Atlanta is not well known. The doctor who treated Ali for Parkinson's was Atlanta's own Dr. Mahlon DeLong, the William Timmie Professor of Neurology at Emory University one of the national leaders in the treatment of Parkinson's.

When 11 hours aren't enough: The rare disorder of perpetual sleepiness
Idiopathic hypersomnia patients sleep for excessively long periods — generally more than 11 hours at a stretch — but even after awakening in daytime hours often find themselves slipping back into slumber. David Rye, a professor of neurology in the sleep program at the Emory University School of Medicine, and more than 5,000 other physicians, researchers and experts will converge on Denver for SLEEP 2016, a gathering of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies starting Sunday at the Colorado Convention Center. Rye has identified biological activity that may be the "parking brake" on wakefulness that triggers the disorder in some patients. (Read More)

Alzheimer's and the biggest mistake caregivers make
Cognitive neuroscientist in the Department of Neurology at Emory University, Whitney Wharton, studies Alzheimer’s from the patient’s side and the people who care for them. Wharton says one of the biggest mistakes caregivers make is not caring for themselves. “Caregivers, they will be stressed, they won’t eat properly, they don’t have time to exercise and that’s unfortunate because, during middle age, particularly for women, is the time when we really need to take care of our bodies.

Alzheimer's: Challenges, choices, and change
"There are a lot of misconceptions about the disease," explains Allan Levey, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Neurology at Emory University and director of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. "Most of the time, the first symptoms are those of memory loss--forgetfulness, losing things and repeating stories, conversations or questions."

Emory studying patients to eliminate chronic disease
"We're just not going to help people live longer but live longer better," said Dr. Sharon Bergquist, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Emory School of Medicine. Over a long period of time, researchers will study participants so they can someday treat and potentially cure chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's and cancer. "We're looking for early markers that predict chronic disease and we're looking to find ways to predict who will develop disease and find novel ways of not only preventing but also treating those diseases," said Dr. Bergquist.

Emory wants you for massive aging study
For Alzheimer's, one of the priorities of the study, no current treatments are effective, said Michele Marcus, an Emory epidemiologist and study investigator on the leadership team, being directed by neurologists Allan Levey and James Lah.

Somatic symptoms before concussion may predict recovery
Psychosomatic symptoms may predict concussion recovery, although post-concussive symptom burden is still a stronger predictor, researchers reported. In an accompanying editorial, David Loring, PhD, of Emory University in Atlanta, and Michael Makdissi, PhD, of Olympic Park Sports Medicine Center in Melbourne, Australia, agreed that pre-injury psychosomatic symptoms may eventually help to develop early interventions that can improve outcomes for patients who have a concussion. (Read More)

Closer look with Rose Scott and Jim Burress: Emory Healthy Aging Study
Dr. James Lah, neurobiologist and associate professor of neurology at the Emory School of Medicine, and Dr. Michele Marcus, professor of epidemiology in the Rollins School of Public Health, discuss a new study on aging and age-related diseases that hopes to enroll 100,000 people over the next four years.

Encore for Bruce
Emory neurologist Dr. Stewart Factor recommended Deep Brain Stimulation to patient and pianist Bruce Gilbert after Gilbert had exhausted his pharmaceutical options. Surgeon Dr. Jon T. Willie performed the procedure at Emory University Hospital using a relatively new technology in which much of the procedure occurs while the patient is inside an extra-wide MRI machine, allowing him to map Bruce’s brain to accurately guide the wires to the target area. - AJC Subscription Required (Read More)

Emory launches largest-ever clinical research study in Atlanta
Emory's Healthy Aging Study is the largest-ever clinical research study in Georgia with an ambitious enrollment goal of 100,000 participants in the first five years. Dr. Allan Levey is helping lead the school's Healthy Aging Study aimed at better understanding Alzheimer's and other chronic diseases that afflict people as they grow older. "Their life span is increasing, but the healthy years, or the health span, is really lagging behind," said Dr. Sharon Bergquist, a member of the Emory study team. Atlanta's diversity -- a community of all colors, personalities, backgrounds -- is what makes it great for this type of study, said Michele Marcus, a professor at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health and also a member of the study's leadership team. The project is also an opportunity to develop a platform for all aging-related diseases, said Dr. James Lah, another principal investigator of the study. - AJC Subscription Required (Read More)

Apple new CareKit Platform allows any user to collect medical data
Dr. Jaime Hatcher-Martin, an assistant professor in movement disorder neurology at Emory University who did consulting work for Apple on the CareKit version of mPower, notes that these high-quality apps, developed by researchers who study specific conditions, also provide doctors with objective data such as measuring a person's tremor, recording a person's voice and even collecting information on a person's walking gait. (Read More)

Ga. woman struggles with paralyzing disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome
When the weakness spread up her arms and legs, [Glenda] Pope finally went to the ER. She was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, or GBS. "It's a syndrome that has a pretty quick onset," says Emory School of Medicine assistant professor of medicine and neurologist Dr. Taylor Harrison.

Health minute: Brain game
Should we shell out time and money for games that we are told will make our brain work better? "Brain development starts in utero and there is a long period of time in which the brain matures just as the rest of the body matures," said Dr. David Loring, professor of neurology and pediatrics, Emory University. "Both social interaction that you have and some of the more broad type of activities in which you engage are related to maintaining a level of function at optimum levels."

Blessing from a Curse
More than a decade ago, a woman in her early 70s came to see neurologist Allan Levey for an evaluation. She was experiencing progressive memory decline and was there with her children. (Read More)

U.S. aims to overhaul ethics rules for research with people
Karen Rommelfanger, director of neuroethics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was interviewed for a story on new rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add privacy protections for participants in clinical research studies. (Read More)

A closer look: Alzheimer's disease
Dr. James Lah with the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Emory University discusses current and future research on Alzheimer's disease.

GA family life with Alzheimer's documented in photos
A project at Emory University is helping caregivers of people experiencing the disease to document family stories of everyday life. (An audio version of the story includes an interview with Whitney Wharton, PhD, who heads the program.)

Chastain family reunites, learns about Alzheimer's disease
After a presentation by Thomas Wingo, assistant professor of neurology and human genetics at Emory University and a researcher studying the Chastain family, members of the family gave blood to have themselves tested for a research study he and other researchers are conducting. Top researcher Dr. Allan Levey at Emory's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center believes studying the Chastain family's genetics could lead to breakthroughs in the field.

Neuroscientist-TV host is the brain behind the brain
Researcher, writer, advocate, thinker of big thoughts and TV host David Eagleman is having a moment, the hot neuroscientist at a time when the brain is the hot organ. Karen Rommelfanger, an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta and director of the neuroethics program there, says Eagleman's great strength is distilling complex ideas in alluring and interesting packages.

Women bear higher cost burdens with Alzheimer's
Experts on Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are not surprised by the results of a recent Emory University study, which finds that women pay more for Alzheimer's disease care than men. Changing that reality is not an easy feat to accomplish. "There is not that much there happening to mitigate the cost," said one of the study's authors, Zhou Yang, assistant professor in Emory's Rollins School of Public Health. The other study author is Dr. Allan Levey, chair of the Department of Neurology and director of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, which is the only National Institutes of Health designated ADRC in the Southeast. (Read More)

Blood pressure meds may cut Alzheimer's risk
People with early thinking and memory issues who took an ACE inhibitor or an ARB medication for their high blood pressure were less likely to get Alzheimer's disease than those on other BP drugs. "All of these blood pressure medications have been available for decades. They're all FDA-approved. They're cheap. And blood pressure is easily controlled," says researcher Whitney Wharton, PhD, an assistant professor at the Emory University School of Medicine. Results from the study were presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2015 in Washington, D.C. (Read More)

Emory reboots Ice Bucket Challenge
Emory has one of the largest centers for ALS in the country, so their lead team stood in front of Emory's School of Medicine to promote the 'Every August until a cure campaign,' encouraging people to do it again, to donate money again, to help research and find a cure for ALS. Doctors Nicholas Boulis and Jonathan Glass bumped chests after getting the buckets dumped on their heads. They then issued the ice bucket challenge to the incoming class of medical students at Emory University School of Medicine, all residents in neurosurgery and neurology at Emory, administrative staff at the new Emory Brain Health Center, and the whole incoming freshman class at Emory.

As movie suspense builds, brains zoom in
Daniel Drane, a neuroscientist at Emory who wasn't involved in the study, said the study could be helpful for surgical applications, too. He uses neuroimaging to plan for epilepsy and tumor surgery.

Sleeping Beauty Syndrome makes it hard to wake up
Doctor David Rye and his colleagues study hypersomnia at the Emory University Sleep Center, where they say they have identified a possible cause in some patients by testing cerebrospinal fluid. "Their body is producing a small protein, or what's called a peptide, that essentially mimics the effects of sleeping pills or anesthesia," Dr. Rye explained. (Read More)

UM awards Taubman Prize, $100K to Emory U. researcher
Mahlon DeLong, M.D., a professor of neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, has been named the recipient of the 2015 Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science. The award, which carries a cash prize of $100,000, was announced by the University of Michigan's A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute. DeLong's research into Parkinson's disease over a 40-year career has improved the quality of life for tens of thousands of Parkinson's disease patients. (Read More)

Homunculus re-imagined
The brain area that controls neck muscles used to be between areas that control the thumb and the top of the head, but a new study puts the neck between the shoulder and the trunk. Hyder Jinnah of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues used fMRI to scan the brains of volunteers as they activated their head-turning neck muscles. The research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.This article also appeared in io9. (Read More)

Grace under pressure
CNN Accent Health featured Winship Cancer Institute volunteer piano player Bruce Gilbert, a patient of Emory movement disorder specialist Dr. Stewart Factor, in a story about living with Parkinson’s Disease.

Johnny Isakson reveals Parkinson's diagnosis, will still run
Dr. Stewart Factor, the director of the Emory University School of Medicine's Comprehensive Parkinson's Disease Center, said, "Progression is variable, so where he would be five years down the road is difficult to predict, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that he could" serve out another term. Dr. Factor also offers questions and answers to describe Parkinson's disease, its causes, and treatment. (Read More)

Alzheimer's research takes a leaf from the prion notebook
Neuroscientist Larry Walker described how he has borrowed a technique from prion research to study different 'strains' of the amyloid-B protein, which accumulates in clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimers "The Alzheimer's field has not been paying enough attention to what's happening in the prion field," says Walker, who is based at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. (Read More)

Jaffar Khan, MD, and Sandra Solomon receive Best Clerkship Awards from SOM Class of 2015
Jaffar Khan, MD, and Sandra Solomon were the respective recipients of the Best Clerkship Director and Best Clerkship Coordinator Awards from the School of Medicine Class of 2015! Congratulations to our outstanding education leadership!

Community brain health forum focuses on nutrition, preventing memory loss and self-care
The Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation to provide education and training on brain health and offer memory screenings for older adults in metro Atlanta. (Read More)

Easing dystonia symptoms with deep brain stimulation
Michael Richardson first experienced symptoms of dystonia, a movement disorder characterized by involuntary muscle contractions and spasms, when he was 13.  These exaggerated movements are called "overflow"—a common occurrence among dystonia patients, says Mahlon DeLong, William Timmie Professor of Neurology at Emory's School of Medicine. (Read More)

Brain Health Center to address massive burden of brain disease
On any given day in the United States alone, more than 42 million people are fighting brain disease such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease. (Read More)

Improving your health could help you sleep better
The most common sleep disorder is insomnia, but for others they get too much sleep and still battle constant tiredness. Both conditions have consequences for your health. What can you do to improve your sleep? Dr. David Rye of the Emory Sleep Center says good sleep hygiene means keep a regular schedule, try to get to bed at the same time, get up early, get exposure to the sun, don't go to bed with your iPhone, and try not to take long naps in the day. (Watch Video)

Alzheimer's research and African-Americans
Emory University researcher Whitney Wharton says African-Americans are more likely to become afflicted with vascular risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, all which contribute to Alzheimer's. She is leading a clinical trial that hopes to determine if a medication used to treat high blood pressure might reduce the risk of Alzheimer's in Blacks. (Watch Video)

ALS Ice bucket challenge donations are funding research at Emory University
The ice bucket challenge raised awareness of ALS and generated an enormous amount of funds. Dr. Jonathan Glass, director of the Emory ALS Center, says "the ice bucket money has really jump started a lot of research projects that I think many researchers have been thinking about and looking for funding for a long time."

Music can hinder a person's memory
A new study from Georgia Tech looks at the effect of music on memory and the difference between young and old brains. The findings have implications for improving memory, said Emory clinical neuropsychologist Felicia Goldstein, who wasn't involved in the study. "It sounds pretty common sense, but we often don't think about the importance of minimizing distraction," Goldstein said. (Read More)

Shots of brain cells restore learning, memory in rats
The researchers directed human stem cells to become a type of brain cell that is destroyed by radiation, a common cancer treatment, then grafted the cells into the brains of irradiated rats. Within a few months, the rats' performance on learning and memory tests improved. "This technique, translated to humans, could be a major step forward for the treatment of radiation-induced brain … injury," says Jonathan Glass, a neurologist at Emory University in Atlanta. (Read More)

Still Alice: An accurate look at Alzheimer's?
For the latest video from Emory Looks at Hollywood, Ken Hepburn of Emory's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center analyzes the authenticity of the film "Still Alice" and Julianne Moore's performance. (Watch Video)

Emory ADRC receives funding to promote brain health for people of color
The Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) has received a $50,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation to provide education on brain health and offer memory screenings for people of color. (Read More)

How an Emory researcher benefited from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Jonathan Glass, who directs the Emory ALS Center, is one of the U.S. investigators for Project MinE, an international genetic research program that will receive $1 million in funds raised by the challenge. The project is working to map the DNA profiles of 15,000 people with ALS to compare with the profiles of 7,500 control subjects. (Read More)

What is the best way to measure disability in MS?
What is the best way to measure disability progression in multiple sclerosis patients? Two specialists took on the question: William Tyor, MD, of Emory University in Atlanta and co-director of the Emory MS Center, and Jerome Graber, MD, MPH of Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. They recommended a variety of tools including standardized scales, MRI scans, and clinical judgment.

Emory ALS researchers to receive funds from ice bucket challenge
The ALS Association has announced an initial commitment of $21.7 million from this summer’s ice bucket challenge to support six programs to expedite the search for treatments and a cure for ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. (Read More)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Conversation with Dr. Mahlon R. DeLong
Emory neurologist Mahlon R. DeLong has a lot to show for his three decades studying Parkinson's, a progressive disease of the nervous system. His discoveries, coupled with those of French neurologist Alim Louis Benabid, have led to the current standard therapy for treating advanced stages of Parkinson's. The treatment is called high frequency deep brain stimulation, or DBS. In September, DeLong and Benabid were honored with the prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for enhancing "the lives of more than 100,000 patients worldwide." (Read More)

Stopping migraine pain
When it comes to headaches, migraines are in a league all their own. Symptoms can last as long as three days, but what can you do to stop the pain? Dr. Gregory Esper, director of general neurology at Emory, says typically people require what's called an abortive medication, something to knock out the migraine when it happens. (Read More)

Design power: Patients play researchers in drug trials
Brandy Parker-McFadden, a 39-year-old with epilepsy who lives near Nashville, Tenn., says she joined the Emory trial as a member of the executive committee after meeting David Loring, professor of neurology and pediatrics at Emory. (Read More)

Renowned neurologist Mahlon DeLong receives Lasker award for pioneering research in Parkinson's disease
The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation will present the 2014 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award to Mahlon DeLong, MD, William Timmie Professor of Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. DeLong will receive the award along with Alim Louis Benabid of Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France. (Read More)

Research making ALS less of a mystery
New research suggests that in ALS patients, these supporting cells become killers, poisoning the motor neurons. Animal studies have found stem cells can help heal the toxic supporting cells. "What the stem cells will do is create a nutritious environment for those motor neurons that are sick," said Dr. Jonathan Glass at Emory University. (Video)

Light can switch bad memories to good
There are potential ethical issues with changing a patient's memories as a form of medical treatment, says Karen Rommelfanger, director of Emory University's Neuroethics Program. For example, would a memory change have side effects, perhaps on a patient's identity and interactions with others? Rommelfanger thinks it's worth pursuing these results, especially for their possible application to those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. (Read More)

Pediatricians: Start middle and high schools later so kids can sleep
Emory sleep expert David Rye indicated that teens are programmed to stay up late. While parents could try to alter their teens' natural sleep patterns and force them to bed earlier, he said it would be a challenge. The better alternative, he suggested, would be delaying the start of school. 

'Sleep drunkenness' is common and linked to other behavior issues
"Sleep drunkenness" is more common than previously thought, affecting about one in seven Americans, or 15 percent, according to a new study that looked at the sleeping habits of more than 19,000 adults. Also called confusional arousal, the condition causes people to wake up in a confused state, not knowing where they are. Dr. David Rye, a professor of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta, said, "Confusional arousals exist -- and are probably more common than we thought." (Read More)

Emory ALS team takes on the ice bucket challenge
Members of the Emory ALS team, along with many colleagues from across the Emory University School of Medicine, took on the ALS ice bucket challenge. The team was participating to help bring awareness and support for ALS research. (Video)

Laser surgery shows promise in halting seizures in epilepsy sufferers
According to studies by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, one of which was funded by a grant from the manufacturer, six months after surgery the laser procedure had a 59 percent seizure-free rate versus 69 percent for traditional surgery but resulted in better memory and cognitive function. "But the million-dollar question is how well does it control seizures long term?" said Daniel Drane, an assistant professor of neurology at Emory whose study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. (Read More)

'Lucy' may be tops at the box office, but is the film wrong about human brain capacity?
In the latest installment of Emory Looks at Hollywood, neurologist Krish Sathian debunks the popular myth that human beings use only 10 percent of our brains. (Video)

Making the most of your aging memory
"There's a decreased efficiency in how our brains work, in the information retrieval process, as we age," says James Lah, MD, PhD, director of Emory University's Cognitive Neurology Program. "That's why names and facts don't come to mind like they used to. It's like a filing system."

Sandy Springs woman struggles with Alzheimer's diagnosis at 55
The Alzheimer's Association estimates about 200,000 Americans are living with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, diagnosed before their 65th birthday. Emory School of Medicine Professor of Neurology Dr. Krish Sathian says the disease tends to affect a region of the brain called the hippocampus first. (Read More)

Hot Topics: Alzheimer's disease
Early this year, Medpage Today asked, "What will be the most important clinical developments in Alzheimer's disease in 2014?" Now, at the half-year mark, experts including Allan Levey, MD, PhD, of Emory University in Atlanta, were asked how their predictions are holding up.

Emory leads $7.2 million Alzheimer's proteomics project
"We have developed a proteomics strategy that will allow us to discover the hundreds or thousands of protein changes that occur in the very first stages of Alzheimer's disease," says principal investigator Allan Levey, Betty Gage Holland Chair of neurology and director of Emory's ADRC. The goal, he says, is to pinpoint proteins most central to the network of changes in the brain, most likely to trigger the disease years before onset of symptoms, and most promising as new targets for preventive therapies. (Read More)

Metlife Foundation recognizes Alzheimer's disease researcher
Lary C. Walker, PhD, research professor of neuropharmacology and neurologic diseases and associate professor of neurology, Emory National Primate Research Center, Emory University, is a recipient of the 2014 MetLife Foundation Awards for Medical Research. The winners were recognized at a scientific briefing and awards ceremony in New York. (Read More)

Dr. Melanie Winningham receives 2014 HOPE Award
Dr. Melanie Winningham is among the recipients of the prestigious 2014 House Staff Organization Professionalism Excellence Award. This peer-nominated award recognizes the top 1% of residents and fellows at Emory University exemplifying professionalism as perceived by their colleagues. Dr. Winningham will enter her 4 and final year of residency July 1, 2014. Upon graduation she will rejoin our Department as a Fellow in Vascular Neurology

Emory researchers receive grants from Harrington Discovery Institute and Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
Two researchers studying Alzheimer's disease at Ohio State University and Emory University will be the first to receive funding for their work from a new collaboration between the Harrington Discovery Institute (HDI) at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF). Emory University's, Thota Ganesh and Dr. Allen Levey will receive $101,000 to collaborate on research focusing on a new anti-inflammation drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (Read More)

Dr. Khan Recipient of Clerkship Director Award
The Class of 2014 presented Dr. Jaffar Khan with the “Best Clerkship Director” award at this year’s Emory University School of Medicine Senior Banquet.  The Department’s Clerkship Coordinator, Sandy Solomon, received the “Best Clerkship Coordinator” award.  The Department is proud of their excellent performance and well deserved recognition.   They are an outstanding team!

Alzheimer's research in Georgia: Moving along but not fast enough
So, how quickly is Alzheimer's research moving? Dr. James Lah is the lead researcher for the Alzheimer's Research Center at Emory. He says the research isn't moving fast enough, but it's still coming along at "a remarkable pace.

MS: Best way to measure disability
William Tyor, MD, of Emory University in Atlanta and co-director of the Emory MS Center, was one of two specialists who recommended a variety of tools to measure disability that include standardized scales, MRI scans and clinical judgment.

Alzheimer's deaths higher than previously thought
A new study says Alzheimer's deaths are under-reported and may be as much as 6 times higher. Dr. Allan Levey, professor and chair of neurology at Emory University and director of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center says death certificates often only record the immediate cause of death. (Video)

Regularly sleeping too long may indicate a health problem
Neurologist David Rye, whose particular expertise is in excessive daytime sleepiness, says that when a patient expresses concerns about needing too much sleep, he looks for underlying medical problems. Rye, director of Emory University's Program in Sleep, often checks for hypothyroidism, in which the thyroid doesn't produce the right balance of hormones. (Read More)

'A Family Affair' benefits Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Also joining in the event were Dr. Allan Levey, professor and Betty Gage Holland Chair of the Department of Neurology at Emory University's School of Medicine and director of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center; and Dr. David Weinshenker of the Emory University Department of Human Genetics. (Read More)

Grady Memorial Hospital receives 'Star Award' from Georgia Coverdell Acute Stroke Registry
From GCASR newsletter: The “Star Awards” recognize an individual and a hospital for leadership in the GCASR. The award recipients were nominated by their colleagues. We want to recognize people and facilities that have changed and continue to change stroke care in the state of Georgia. The awards are in appreciation for the mentoring, support, and passion that our Coverdell hospitals and staff provide to the registry. We received an overwhelming number of submissions and we want you to know that the voting process took place by an independent team of reviewers not affiliated with the Georgia Coverdell Acute Stroke Registry (Read More)

Samir Belagaje, MD, awarded a 2014 A. B. Baker Teacher Recognition Certificate
Dr. Belagaje has been awarded a 2014 A. B. Baker Teacher Recognition Certificate. This is an American Academy of Neurology recognition honoring outstanding teachers of neurology. Dr. Belagaje will be honored Monday, April 28, 2014, at the 66th AAN Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. The Education Colloquium will begin at 9:00 a.m. and will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.  Congratulations Dr. Belagaje!

Potential risk factor for Alzheimer's: DDT exposure
Marla Gearing (pathology) and Allan Levey (Betty Gage Holland Chair and chair of neurology) were co-authors of a study published last month in JAMA Neurology. (Read More)

US study finds pesticide may raise risk of Alzheimer's
"This is one of the first studies identifying a strong environmental risk factor for Alzheimer's disease," said a statement by study co-author Allan Levey, chair of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine.

Memory fares better with laser ablation for epilepsy than with surgery
In a study comparing pre- and post-treatment cognitive outcomes in 17 people with temporal lobe epilepsy, those treated with MRI-guided laser ablation had better outcomes on episodic memory measures 6 months after surgery than did the patients treated with standard surgical treatments, said Dr. Daniel Drane of the departments of neurology and pediatrics at Emory University, Atlanta. (Read More)

US study finds pesticide may raise risk of Alzheimer's
The World Health Organization says some 35 million people around the world are living with dementia. "This is one of the first studies identifying a strong environmental risk factor for Alzheimer's disease," said a statement by study co-author Allan Levey, chair of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine.

Tackling Stroke
Prevention also means research to figure out why certain people are at higher risk of stroke. Frankel, for example, leads a national NIH study to evaluate blood biomarkers in at-risk patients. Nahab's research has focused on how nutrition and diet may explain why Georgians, especially African Americans, are at greater risk for stroke. (Read More)