Study Shows Brain’s Ability to Reorganize

Visually impaired people appear to be fearless, navigating busy sidewalks and crosswalks, safely finding their way using nothing more than a cane as a guide. The reason they can do this, researchers suggest, is that in at least some circumstances, blindness can heighten other senses, helping individuals adapt.

Now scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Neurology have confirmed that blindness causes structural changes in the brain, indicating that the brain may reorganize itself functionally in order to adapt to a loss in sensory input.

Reporting in the January issue of the journal NeuroImage, Natasha Leporé, PhD, a postgraduate researcher at UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues found that visual regions of the brain were smaller in volume in blind individuals than in sighted ones. However, for non-visual areas, the trend was reversed – they grew larger in the blind. This, the researchers say, suggests that the brains of blind individuals are compensating for the reduced volume in areas normally devoted to vision.

“This study shows the exceptional plasticity of the brain and its ability to reorganize itself after a major input – in this case, vision – is lost,” says Leporé. “In other words, it appears the brain will attempt to compensate for the fact that a person can no longer see, and this is particularly true for those who are blind since early infancy, a developmental period in which the brain is much more plastic and modifiable than it is in adulthood.”

Researchers used an extremely sensitive type of brain imaging called tensor-based morphometry, which can detect very subtle changes in brain volume, to examine the brains of three different groups: those who lost their sight before the age of 5; those who lost their sight after 14; and a control group of sighted individuals. Comparing the two groups of blind individuals, the researchers found that loss and gain of brain matter depended heavily on when the blindness occurred.

Only the early-blind group differed significantly from the control group in an area of the brain’s corpus callosum that aids in the transmission of visual information between the two hemispheres of the brain. The researchers suggest this may be because of the reduced amount of myelination in the absence of visual input. Myelin, the fatty sheaf that surrounds nerves and allows for fast communication, develops rapidly in the very young. When the onset of blindness occurs in adolescence or later, the growth of myelin is already relatively complete, so the structure of the corpus callosum may not be strongly influenced by the loss of visual input.

In both blind groups, however, the researchers found significant enlargement in areas of the brain not responsible for vision. For example, the frontal lobes, which are involved with, among other things, working memory, were found to be abnormally enlarged, perhaps offering an anatomical foundation for some of blind individuals’ enhanced skills.

– University of California, Los Angeles, Health Sciences



Egyptian Mummies Reveal Heart Disease as Ancient Affliction

A new study finds that atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries – was common in ancient Egyptians, challenging a belief that vascular disease is a modern affliction caused by current-day risk factors such as stress and sedentary lifestyles.

Michael Miyamoto, MD, a graduate of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and assistant clinical professor, recently returned to the U.S. following an expedition to Egypt to evaluate the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in 3,500-year-old mummies. Results of his work were presented during the American Heart Associate 2009 Scientific Sessions and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Our findings show that atherosclerosis is not strictly a disease of modern humans caused by unhealthy lifestyles,” says Miyamoto, a cardiologist and co-investigator of the study. “In fact, it is possible that humans have a genetic predisposition to the development of atherosclerosis. Our findings remind us of the value of preventive medicine in eliminating or controlling manifestations of heart and vascular disease.”

In 2009, Miyamoto and a team of cardiologists and Egyptologists carefully examined 22 mummies from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities using a six-slice CT scanner. In the mummies with identifiable arteries, more than half had calcifications in the walls of their arteries. Those who died after the age of 45 showed the highest degree of calcification. Vascular disease was observed in both male and female mummies.

“As the mummy CT images appeared on the monitor, we were struck by the fact that our project was made possible by combining the advanced technologies of two different eras – the science of mummification in ancient Egypt and modern imaging,” says Miyamoto. “In a real sense, this was a scientific collaboration that spanned great time and distance.”

The oldest mummified Egyptian exhibiting the greatest degree of atherosclerosis was Lady Rai. The nursemaid to Queen Ahmose Nefertiti, Lady Rai lived to an age between 30 and 40 years old circa 1530 B.C. To put this in context, Lady Rai lived approximately 300 years prior to the time of Moses and 200 years prior to King Tutankhamun.

Surprised by their results, the cardiologists asked the Egyptian preservation team to share information about the lifestyle of ancient Egypt. In general, all who were later mummified, served in the court of the Pharaoh or as priests or priestesses. Diet-wise, eating beef, duck, and other poultry was not uncommon. Since refrigeration was unavailable, salt was widely used for meat preservation. Tobacco was not available and without mechanical transportation, they were likely physically active.

– University of California, San Diego Health Sciences



Business Briefs

Novian Health, Chicago-based manufacturer of Novilase™ Breast Therapy for benign breast tumors, announced an agreement with Tower Radiology Center in Tampa, Fla., to provide the Novilase laser treatment to treat benign breast lumps.

Carmel, Ind.-based Zotec Partners has received a billing services contract from Lexington Radiology Associates in West Columbia, S.C., which provides comprehensive imaging services to patients at Lexington Medical Center, also in West Columbia, S.C.

Ziosoft® Inc. in Redwood City, Calif., has announced that Rob Royea has joined as vice president, sales and marketing, after having most recently served as vice president of worldwide sales for Eklin Medical Systems in Santa Clara, Calif.

Riverain Medical in Miamisburg, Ohio, will be partnering with medical imaging distributor Christie Group in St-Eustache, Québec, Canada, to offer SoftView Enhanced Chest Imaging and OnGuard Chest X-ray CAD, bringing Riverain Medical’s products to the Canadian market. 

Mirada Medical in Oxford, United Kingdom, has contracted with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Varian Medical Systems for the supply of multimodality image registration technologies, to provide an embedded registration engine that Varian can build into its product offerings.

The Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics has announced that a gynecological patient at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., became the first patient in the United States to receive radiation therapy planned with Philips’ Pinnacle3 SmartArc technology, which provides tools for volumetric-modulated arc therapy treatment planning, an advanced form of intensity-modulated radiation therapy delivering precise radiation dose in single or multiple arcs around the patient. 

NightRays, a privately held provider of teleradiology services and technology in Bellaire, Texas, has been awarded a 36-month contract with Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier Purchasing Partners LP, after an extensive evaluation process.

USARAD.com, a national subspecialty radiology and teleradiology firm in Houston, has been accredited by The Joint Commission in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., following a comprehensive survey and inspection process.

PinnacleHealth in Harrisburg, Pa., has installed Tustin, Calif.-based Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc.’s Aquilion® Premium multi-detector CT at its Community Campus, making the Harrisburg, Pa., hospital the first in country offering this technology.

Two Kentucky facilities – Bluegrass Community Hospital in Versailles and South Central Kentucky MRI in LaGrange – recently installed American Fork, Utah-based NovaRad PACS and RIS technologies.

Garner, N.C.-based Viztek has installed the new Opal-CR at Park Avenue Family Practice of Yonkers, N.Y., to upgrade and replace the dated CR technology at the ambulatory care facility, which does a high volume of CR procedures.

Carrot Medical in Newton, Mass., has announced its successful completion of product installations at four sites: Yale Medical Center in New Haven, Conn.; Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston; The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Bethesda, Md.-based CodeRyte Inc. has appeared as No. 278 on New York City-based Deloitte’s annual list of the country’s 500 fastest growing businesses and was ranked in the top 35 percent of Inc. magazine’s list of 5000 of America’s fastest-growing private companies.

Calypso Medical Technologies Inc., a Seattle-based developer of real-time localization technology used for the precise tracking of tumor targets, has entered a strategic development agreement with Siemens Healthcare in Malvern, Pa., to jointly develop products integrating the Calypso® System with the Siemens ARTISTE linear accelerator and other Siemens radiotherapy technologies.

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