It’s a time-honored and somewhat romantic tale: The young fighter who rises from poverty to make a name for themselves. But reality might take some shine off such stories, a new study says. Participants in combat sports like boxing or mixed martial arts who grew up in poor neighborhoods might be more likely to suffer brain changes associated with degenerative brain disease, compared to fighters who come from affluent backgrounds, researchers report. Specifically, they had smaller brain volumes in regions important for movement and memory, including the thalamus, cerebellum and hippocampus, according to findings published Aug. 13 in Neurology Open Access. “It is well-known that high-impact sports such as professional fighting are at a greater risk of repetitive head injuries,” lead researcher Brooke Conway Kleven, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a news release. “We found that socioeconomic status may influence how the brain responds to these repetitive impacts.” For the study, researchers performed MRI brain scans on 100 professional combat sport athletes. All participants had a minimum of 10 professional fights and were currently active or recently retired from competition. During five years of follow-up, 20% of the fighters developed thinking and memory problems. Analysis revealed that athletes from impoverished neighborhoods had a thinner outer layer in certain brain areas, which can be a sign of early brain…  read on >  read on >

It’s a time-honored and somewhat romantic tale: The young fighter who rises from poverty to make a name for themselves. But reality might take some shine off such stories, a new study says. Participants in combat sports like boxing or mixed martial arts who grew up in poor neighborhoods might be more likely to suffer brain changes associated with degenerative brain disease, compared to fighters who come from affluent backgrounds, researchers report. Specifically, they had smaller brain volumes in regions important for movement and memory, including the thalamus, cerebellum and hippocampus, according to findings published Aug. 13 in Neurology Open Access. “It is well-known that high-impact sports such as professional fighting are at a greater risk of repetitive head injuries,” lead researcher Brooke Conway Kleven, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a news release. “We found that socioeconomic status may influence how the brain responds to these repetitive impacts.” For the study, researchers performed MRI brain scans on 100 professional combat sport athletes. All participants had a minimum of 10 professional fights and were currently active or recently retired from competition. During five years of follow-up, 20% of the fighters developed thinking and memory problems. Analysis revealed that athletes from impoverished neighborhoods had a thinner outer layer in certain brain areas, which can be a sign of early brain…  read on >  read on >

An under-the-scalp implant can improve monitoring of a person’s epilepsy, giving doctors data they need to improve control over seizures, a new pilot study says. Epilepsy patients must now keep a diary to track their symptoms. But these self-observations are only right about half the time, researchers found when they compared patients’ diaries to tens of thousands of hours of brainwave data collected by an implant. “A small tracker placed under the skin was able to detect seizures far more accurately than the participants themselves,” senior researcher Mark Richardson, head of the School of Neuroscience at King’s College London in the U.K., said in a news release. Symptom diaries are unreliable because people with epilepsy can experience seizures without realizing it, due to impairment of consciousness or memory loss, researchers said in background notes.  Patients might also misinterpret symptoms as seizures, when they are not. But such data is needed to help dial in the medication people need to control their seizures, researchers said. About a third of people with epilepsy continue to have ongoing seizures despite being prescribed anti-seizure drugs. “It is vital that people with treatment-resistant epilepsy are able to access the best possible care,” Richardson said. “This is made significantly more challenging by the fact that clinicians must rely on patient reporting to establish when episodes have taken place.” For this study,…  read on >  read on >

An under-the-scalp implant can improve monitoring of a person’s epilepsy, giving doctors data they need to improve control over seizures, a new pilot study says. Epilepsy patients must now keep a diary to track their symptoms. But these self-observations are only right about half the time, researchers found when they compared patients’ diaries to tens of thousands of hours of brainwave data collected by an implant. “A small tracker placed under the skin was able to detect seizures far more accurately than the participants themselves,” senior researcher Mark Richardson, head of the School of Neuroscience at King’s College London in the U.K., said in a news release. Symptom diaries are unreliable because people with epilepsy can experience seizures without realizing it, due to impairment of consciousness or memory loss, researchers said in background notes.  Patients might also misinterpret symptoms as seizures, when they are not. But such data is needed to help dial in the medication people need to control their seizures, researchers said. About a third of people with epilepsy continue to have ongoing seizures despite being prescribed anti-seizure drugs. “It is vital that people with treatment-resistant epilepsy are able to access the best possible care,” Richardson said. “This is made significantly more challenging by the fact that clinicians must rely on patient reporting to establish when episodes have taken place.” For this study,…  read on >  read on >