A memory device may be implanted in a small number of human volunteers within two years and the device might become available to anyone within five to ten years. A maverick neuroscientist, Theodore Berger, believes he has deciphered the code by which the brain forms long-term memories.
The proposed workshop is going to explore the various research problems that require integrated support from medical-engineering experts. The hands on session on biostatistics will provide various methods to test the results and to relate its importance for clinical diagnosis.
For people with memory-degrading conditions like Alzheimer’s, it’s not always easy, or even possible, to remember to take one’s medicine. Yet forgetting to take your meds-or perhaps worse, forgetting that you already took them and doubling up-can derail a dosage schedule and in worse cases be detrimental to your health. So a couple of University of Texas students have come up with a smart digital system that helps the forgetful among us remember to pop our pills and verifies visually that we’ve done so.
By the students’ own admission their Project Smart Pill Box is somewhat rudimentary, which in certain respects is an advantage because the only hardware it requires is a computer and a Web cam, two pieces of technology that are already present in most homes these days.
Researchers say a PET imaging agent is able to detect a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, in a new study hailed as a “landmark” in the fight against the debilitating disease.
In the study, the amount of beta-amyloid deposits in the brains of the living on a PET scan matched up with what was discovered later during an autopsy.
“It’s a landmark paper, because it’s the first time that, apart from presentations of these data at meetings, …a tracer like that has been validated systematically against neuropathology,” Dr. Karl Herholz, a neurologist with the University of Manchester and president of SNM’s Brain Imaging Council, told DOTmed News. “It’s not a big surprise it’s that good, but it’s certainly important to document that.”
