PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support

Rochester researchers are developing multimodal, non-invasive ways to study the brain’s physiology and reduce neurological issues associated with the therapy.

Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support
2024-03-14
(Press-News.org) Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) can be a life-saving therapy for patients with acute heart or lung failure. During ECMO therapy, a patient’s blood flows out of their veins through tubes and into a machine that does both the actions of the heart and lungs. The oxygenated blood is then returned to the body allowing the heart and lungs to rest.

While ECMO can stabilize a critically ill patient in an intensive care unit, the procedure carries significant risks, including brain injury. Often these patients are comatose, and current neuromonitoring techniques are too risky and invasive to perform routinely. Now, researchers at the University of Rochester are devising new non-invasive, multimodal techniques to monitor the brain’s physiology and prevent harm.

Regine Choe, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and of electrical and computer engineering, and Imad Khan, an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery, have linked together multiple devices to evaluate different aspects of the brain’s health. The devices monitor the cortex, the brain’s outermost layer where neurons reside, using electroencephalography (EEG) to study electrical activity and a new optical method called diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS), which measures brain-blood flow. They also use evoked potentials—measurements of the electrical signals produced by the nervous system in response to an external stimulus— to examine deeper structures in the brain.

“Using near-infrared light, we can non-invasively evaluate blood flow about one centimeter into the brain tissue,” says Choe. “This is done by bouncing light off the red blood cells in the brain’s capillaries.”

She adds, “The correlation between blood flow measured by DCS and neural activity measured by EEG can tell us a lot about the health of the brain. We believe evoked potentials will provide important indicators about whether a patient can potentially wake up from their coma.”

ECMO therapy—enhanced with more data

The project began in 2019 with funding from a University Research Award and the team has tested it on more than 20 patients to date. Choe and Khan recently received a National Institutes of Health grant to further refine their method. The grant will allow them to test the process on 100 comatose patients who have suffered from cardiac arrest, some of whom are receiving ECMO and others who are not.

So far, the researchers have used DCS on the front portions of the brain, which has yielded intriguing findings such as asymmetric perfusion in the brain’s hemispheres. This finding may be caused by ECMO in patients who are comatose. The researchers want to expand perfusion monitoring to the 20 locations of the brain often used for EEG monitoring, thereby providing an additional metric for brain health. They aim to create a low-cost instrument incorporating both modalities that they can prepare for clinical trials.

The researchers say the data they collect through their system will provide important information to help clinicians optimize ECMO therapy.

“Our brains naturally have extremely intricate ways of controlling the amount of blood flow it receives, and how much oxygen and carbon dioxide need to be in the blood,” says Khan. “With ECMO, we are bypassing all of that to put blood flow and gas exchange in the hands of a clinician. Our device will provide clinicians with more data to make informed decisions about how to regulate these factors.”

Mark Marinescu, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and a cardiac intensivist collaborating on the project, believes the technique can help provide better care to patients and their families.

“A lot of times patients will come in unconscious because they are so sick and you have to make life-changing decisions about long-term medical devices to support them,” says Marinescu. “It would be really helpful to be able to predict if they are neurologically going to do okay afterwards. That would help us counsel patients’ families regarding what we should advocate for.”

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support 2 Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Kurdish uprisings have led to new ways for communities to claim Kurdish identity, study shows

2024-03-14
Kurdish uprisings have become a way for people to assert their identity and challenge their historical and structural erasure in modern Iran, a new study shows. Protests following the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in police custody in Iran led to “remarkable” acts of resistance built on decades of activism, according to the research. The study, published in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, outlines how the growing resistance that up to “Jîna's uprising” had been largely unnoticed by many Iranians. Dr ...

Infections from these bacteria are on the rise. New blood test cuts diagnosis time from months to hours

2024-03-14
Inhaling nontuberculous mycobacteria is common for most people. The bacteria are found in water systems, soil and dust worldwide and, for many, cause no harm. For those with underlying conditions, nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) can infect the lungs, causing symptoms similar to tuberculosis. Inflammation can cause a chronic and sometimes bloody cough as well as scarring, which can make respiratory infections like bronchitis and pneumonia more common. Due to the slow growth of the bacteria, proper diagnosis and treatment can take months. In a new study, Tulane University researchers have developed a CRISPR-based platform for diagnosing NTM infections where blood testing ...

Researchers prove fundamental limits of electromagnetic energy absorption

2024-03-14
Electrical engineers at Duke University have determined the theoretical fundamental limit for how much electromagnetic energy a transparent material with a given thickness can absorb. The finding will help engineers optimize devices designed to block certain frequencies of radiation while allowing others to pass through, for applications such as stealth or wireless communications. “Much of the physics of the known universe already have fundamental solutions or are too complex to get an exact answer,” said Willie Padilla, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke. “In any field, finding a truly novel, fundamental, exact ...

New study shows analog computing can solve complex equations and use far less energy

New study shows analog computing can solve complex equations and use far less energy
2024-03-14
AMHERST, Mass. – A team of researchers including University of Massachusetts Amherst engineers have proven that their analog computing device, called a memristor, can complete complex, scientific computing tasks while bypassing the limitations of digital computing.   Many of today’s important scientific questions—from nanoscale material modeling to large-scale climate science—can be explored using complex equations. However, today’s digital computing systems are reaching their limit for performing these computations in terms of speed, energy consumption and infrastructure.   Qiangfei Xia, ...

Diverse habitats help salmon weather unpredictable climate changes

Diverse habitats help salmon weather unpredictable climate changes
2024-03-14
Restored salmon habitat should resemble financial portfolios, offering fish diverse options for feeding and survival so that they can weather various conditions as the climate changes, a new study shows. The researchers looked at threatened spring-run Chinook salmon in tributaries of the Sacramento River. It found that restored sites that produce lots of fish may be especially vulnerable to changes such as drought. Such sites should be coupled with other varying sites that support the salmon population in diverse ways. “The fish need all the different ...

Therapy using intense light and chronological time can benefit heart

2024-03-14
AURORA, Colo. (March 14, 2024) – Managing circadian rhythms through intense light and chronologically timed therapy can help prevent or treat a variety of circulatory system conditions including heart disease, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The study was published today in Circulation Research, an official journal of the American Heart Association. “The impact of circadian rhythms on cardiovascular function and disease development is well established,” ...

UW researchers taught kids to code with cultural research and embroidery machines

UW researchers taught kids to code with cultural research and embroidery machines
2024-03-14
Even in tech-heavy Washington state, the numbers of students with access to computer science classes aren’t higher than national averages: In the 2022-2023 school year, 48% of public high schools offered foundational CS classes and 5% of middle school and high school students took such classes. Those numbers have inched up, but historically marginalized populations are still less likely to attend schools teaching computer science, and certain groups — such as Latinx students and young women — are less likely than their peers to be enrolled in the classes even if the school offers them. To reach a greater diversity of grade-school ...

Association for Psychological Science offers new training opportunities to its members with Instats partnership

2024-03-14
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — The Association for Psychological Science (APS), the leading organization serving psychological researchers, practitioners, teachers, and students from around the world, has announced a new partnership that will expand the training and career development resources available to its members.   APS has partnered with Instats, a virtual learning platform offering live and on-demand research training seminars, courses, and workshops. Instats provides its PhD-level programming through its global network of ...

FRYL gene variants linked to a new neurological disorder

2024-03-14
A recent study from the lab of Dr. Hugo J. Bellen, distinguished service professor at Baylor College of Medicine and investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) links the FRYL gene to a new neurodevelopmental disorder in humans. They used fruit flies to establish that the loss of a functional copy of the FRY-like transcription coactivator (FRYL) gene is the underlying cause of this new disorder in fourteen individuals. The study was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. FRYL ...

Age and sex associated with patient’s likelihood of antimicrobial resistance

Age and sex associated with patient’s likelihood of antimicrobial resistance
2024-03-14
A person’s age, sex and location are correlated with the chance that they have a bloodstream infection that is resistant to antibiotics, according to a new study published March 14th in PLOS Medicine by Gwenan Knight of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and colleagues. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), in which infections cannot be treated with antibiotics, is a major global public health threat. Little has been known about how the prevalence of resistance varies with age and sex even though antibiotic usage, changes in immune function, and exposure to high-risk settings are all linked to age and sex. In the new study, researchers analyzed ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Survey of 12 European countries reveals the best and worst for smoke-free homes

First new treatment for asthma attacks in 50 years

Certain HRT tablets linked to increased heart disease and blood clot risk

Talking therapy and rehabilitation probably improve long covid symptoms, but effects modest

Ban medical research with links to the fossil fuel industry, say experts

Different menopausal hormone treatments pose different risks

Novel CAR T cell therapy obe-cel demonstrates high response rates in adult patients with advanced B-cell ALL

Clinical trial at Emory University reveals twice-yearly injection to be 96% effective in HIV prevention

Discovering the traits of extinct birds

Are health care disparities tied to worse outcomes for kids with MS?

For those with CTE, family history of mental illness tied to aggression in middle age

The sound of traffic increases stress and anxiety

Global food yields have grown steadily during last six decades

Children who grow up with pets or on farms may develop allergies at lower rates because their gut microbiome develops with more anaerobic commensals, per fecal analysis in small cohort study

North American Early Paleoindians almost 13,000 years ago used the bones of canids, felids, and hares to create needles in modern-day Wyoming, potentially to make the tailored fur garments which enabl

Higher levels of democracy and lower levels of corruption are associated with more doctors, independent of healthcare spending, per cross-sectional study of 134 countries

In major materials breakthrough, UVA team solves a nearly 200-year-old challenge in polymers

Wyoming research shows early North Americans made needles from fur-bearers

Preclinical tests show mRNA-based treatments effective for blinding condition

Velcro DNA helps build nanorobotic Meccano

Oceans emit sulfur and cool the climate more than previously thought

Nanorobot hand made of DNA grabs viruses for diagnostics and blocks cell entry

Rare, mysterious brain malformations in children linked to protein misfolding, study finds

Newly designed nanomaterial shows promise as antimicrobial agent

Scientists glue two proteins together, driving cancer cells to self-destruct

Intervention improves the healthcare response to domestic violence in low- and middle-income countries

State-wide center for quantum science: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology joins IQST as a new partner

Cellular traffic congestion in chronic diseases suggests new therapeutic targets

Cervical cancer mortality among US women younger than age 25

Fossil dung reveals clues to dinosaur success story

[Press-News.org] Improved neuromonitoring could prevent brain injuries for patients on ECMO life support
Rochester researchers are developing multimodal, non-invasive ways to study the brain’s physiology and reduce neurological issues associated with the therapy.