News

The Annual Bristol Paediatric Neurology Masterclass will be held on 18 & 19 April 2013 Topics include: Syncope and anoxic seizures Epilepsy in adolescence Chanellopathies Neurocutaneous disorders Peripheral neuropathies Traumatic Brain Injury Congenital infections of CNS Management of “difficult” epilepsies Movement disorders Cerebellar disorders Neurogenetics Stroke Autoimmune disorders of the CNS Neurotransmitter disorders Faculty includes: John Livingston (Leeds) Sameer Zuberi (Glasgow) Andrew Lux (Bristol) Dana Craiu (Bucharest) Rima Nabbout (Paris) Richard Appleton (Liverpool) Sergiusz Józwiak (Warsaw) Alexander Paciorkowski (Rochester NY) Anirban Majumdar (Bristol) Alasdair Parker (Cambridge)...

The Myotubular Trust announces A Fifth Call To Grant Application. The trust is looking to fund further projects that will help find a cure and/or a treatment for any of the three types of myotubular myopathy (congenital X-linked recessive; congenital autosomal recessive; autosomal dominant), focusing on research that would not generally be funded by public or industrial funding sources. The call is open to research bodies internationally. To date, the trust have awarded six research grants / fellowships for the following projects: Gene therapy for x-linked myotubular myopathy...

A European team of scientists have built the first atlas of white-matter microstructure in the human brain. The project’s final results have the potential to change the face of neuroscience and medicine over the coming decade. The work relied on groundbreaking MRI technology and was funded by the EU’s future and emerging technologies program with a grant of 2.4 million Euros. The participants of the project, called CONNECT, were drawn from leading research centers in countries across Europe including Israel, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland and Italy. The project investigators...

The 18th Mediterranean and Pan Arab Child Neurology Congress In Collaboration with the Egyptian Society of Child Neuropsychiatry (ESCNP) will be held at Hilton Green Plaza Alexandria, Egypt from April 17-18, 2013. The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2013. Abstracts are to be send as a word document (A4, Arial Size 12) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   Before March 15, 2013 After...

A study led by Brian McCabe and his team from the Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) suggests that contrary to existing theories, Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), results primarily from motor circuit dysfunction and not motor neuron or muscle cell dysfunction  SMA, a hereditary neuromuscular disease characterized by muscle atrophy and weakness is caused by defects in a gene called SMN1 (survival motor neuron 1), which encodes the SMN protein. There are several forms of SMA, distinguished by time of onset and clinical severity. The most severe...

A Phase I clinical trial led by investigators from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that neural stem cells successfully engrafted into the brains of patients and appear to have produced myelin. The findings have been published in the Oct 10, 2012 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Once transplanted and engrafted, neural stem cells have the potential to differentiate into a number of different brain cell types, depending on the area of the brain into which they are inserted. The sites chosen for the Phase I study were known from...

The ICNA is happy to announce an educational program to be held in Pune, India on January 19-20, 2013 in collaboration with Pune Neurological Society. The ICNA will be represented by Doctors Harry Chugani, Banu Anlar, Linda De Meirleir, Peter Camfield, Carol Camfield. The local organizer is Dr Nandan Yardi, K.E.M. Hospital Research Centre, Pune     Read More

The 48-week results from the ongoing Phase IIb clinical trial of eteplirsen for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)has been announced. Eteplirsen is an exon-skipping compound that addresses one of the underlying genetic defects in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. At 48 weeks eteplirsen demonstrated a significant and unprecedented clinical benefit on the primary clinical outcome measure, the 6-minute walk test, and met the primary efficacy endpoint of the study, an increase in novel dystrophin. The results represent the potential medical breakthrough that eteplirsen represents for the treatment of DMD. Although only about...

In an article published in the Lancet on September 27, Professor Newton and Professor Hector Garcia, both Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellows describes the burden of epilepsy in in poor areas of the world. They conducted a comprehensive review of academic articles about epilepsy in developing countries in order to piece together a picture of the burden of the disease in poorer parts of the world. The burden of epilepsy in low-income countries is more than twice that found in high-income countries, probably because the incidence of risk factors for eg head...

Children suffering from prolonged, acute, convulsive seizures may not always receive timely rescue medication in schools and other community settings as intended by their specialist physician, according to the first findings of the PERFECT[1] Initiative. The results were presented as part of a symposium at the ILAE's 10th European Congress on Epileptology (ECE), in London. The Steering Committee for The PERFECTTM Initiative, which comprises a group of leading clinical epilepsy specialists from six countries across Europe, also highlight discrepancies in comprehensive European guidelines and legal frameworks that ensure children with prolonged, acute, convulsive seizures are treated quickly whether...