A DEVICE that transmits neural signals from inside a blood vessel in the brain enabled four severely paralyzed patients to perform hands-free digital activities such as texting, emailing, conducting personal finance, online shopping, and communication of care needs using just their thoughts, researchers said.
While placement of earlier brain-computer interface devices requires that a piece of skull be removed, the new device from Synchron, called Stentrode, is implanted during a minimally invasive procedure, according to a report published on Monday in JAMA Neurology.
From its location in a blood vessel, the device detects and wirelessly transmits to the computer the user’s “motor intent,” or thoughts that would precede voluntary movement if it were possible.
Three of the patients learned to use the device at home, with the assistance of a caregiver, after just two training sessions, researchers said.
There were no serious adverse side effects or complications associated with the neuroprosthetic device during the year-long study at Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia.
New York-based Synchron has launched a second small US trial of the device, enrolling patients with severe paralysis due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), stroke, spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis.
Financial support from Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates makes the startup “one of the best-funded efforts to enable people to control computers with their minds,” Bloomberg reported last month.
Synchron is ahead of Elon Musk’s Neuralink in the process to win regulatory clearance for its devices, Reuters reported in August.
CERVICAL CANCER
A substantial proportion of cervical cancers are diagnosed in women over age 65, with higher rates of late-stage disease and deaths in that age group, despite current guidelines that say screening for cervical cancer can usually stop at this age, new findings suggest.
Researchers reported on Monday in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that among more than 12,000 cervical cancers diagnosed in California from 2009 to 2018, nearly one in five were in women age 65 and older. Among all the women with newly identified cervical cancers, 71% were found to have advanced disease, compared with 48% of younger women. The older women with late-stage disease also were less likely than younger patients to be alive five years later.
The study found worsening five-year relative survival from cervical cancer with each increasing age category for both early and late-stage diagnoses.
According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, women over age 65 may not need screening if they have had normal screening results for several years and have never been told they had cervical precancer.
“Our findings highlight the need to better understand how current screening guidelines might be failing women 65 and over,” co-author Julianne Cooley of the University of California, Davis, said in a statement.
CORONARY CALCIUM
A recent study linked very vigorous exercise by men to more calcium in the arteries carrying blood to the heart, but researchers say that’s not necessarily bad.
The 289 middle aged and older male amateur athletes in the study had CT scans to assess coronary artery calcification at the start and again roughly six years later. Progression of coronary artery calcification was greatest in men for whom very vigorous exertion accounted for the largest proportion of their exercise regimen over the study period, researchers reported in Circulation, the flagship journal of the American Heart Association.
Over the course of the study, the men ranked the intensity of their exercise weekly using “metabolic equivalents of tasks” (METs), with 1 MET being the amount of energy spent sitting at rest. Exercises like jogging and running were considered to be “vigorous” (rated at 6 to 9 METs) and “very vigorous” (more than 9 METs), respectively.
Increased coronary artery calcium buildup is generally associated with higher risk of heart problems, so it might appear that very vigorous exercise is associated with increased risk, said study leader Dr. Vincent Aengevaeren of Radboud University Medical Center in The Netherlands. But the increase in coronary artery calcification may represent a helpful hardening of the fat and other substances lining the artery walls, which would stabilize these plaques and make them less likely to rupture and cause a heart attack, he said.
Until more research is done, there is no reason to change exercise habits based on this study, Aengevaeren said. In addition, the findings may not apply to women, “since the association between exercise and coronary atherosclerosis may be different” for them. — Reuters
