If there is a technical exploration of the human body that the physician practice in any medical examination to diagnose or prescribe additional tests, it is palpation. The brain, however, has the distinction of being not possible to feel without a very invasive procedure (opening of the skull) reserved for rare cases. Drawing on seismology, researchers from Inserm led by Stefan Catheline (Inserm Unit 1032 ‘Applications of Ultrasound therapy’) have developed a non-invasive method of imaging of the brain by MRI which gives the same indications as physical palpation. A term may be used for early diagnosis of brain tumours or of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Inserm researchers have managed, via MRI to detect natural brain shear waves using computational techniques borrowed from seismologists and known as ‘noise correlation.’ They were able to draw of brain elasticity image.
‘If this method can be developed in the clinic, it would be both a comfort for the patient and the doctor because today vibrating the brain is painful enough. Of course, this method will be complementary to the existing ones and the future is a multimodal medical diagnosis, ‘says Stefan Catheline, Senior Research Director Inserm author of this work.
‘Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, hydrocephalus involve changes in the hardness of brain tissue. This new technique could detect those changes and be used to prevent brain biopsies.’
This method of brain palpation could have other application areas such as the analysis of the development of neurodegenerative processes, the impact of a traumatic injury or tumour, or the response to treatment.

INSERM http://tinyurl.com/zhyjj9x

Piezoelectric materials turn mechanical stress into electrical energy, and vice versa. In 1997, researchers developed piezoelectric materials that were 10 times better at coupling electrical and mechanical responses than prior state-of-the-art materials. But even scientists did not understand why the newer materials were so responsive.
Now, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their research partners have used neutron scattering to discover the key to piezoelectric excellence in the newer materials, which are called relaxor-based ferroelectrics. (A ferroelectric material has electrical polarization that is reversed by application of an electric field.) Their findings may provide knowledge needed to accelerate the design of functional materials for diverse applications.
Relaxor-based oxide ferroelectrics have revolutionized piezoelectric devices. In medical ultrasound, for example, the mechanical pressure of sound waves generates images of a person’s interior. Compared with the performance of traditional materials, the stronger response of relaxor-based ferroelectrics yields a more detailed electrical signal that produces better images. Instead of having somewhat blurry guidance from 2D images to diagnose a cause of pain, assess prenatal condition, guide a biopsy or assess damage after a heart attack, doctors now rely on finely detailed 3D imagery. These modern materials also made it possible to focus ultrasound waves for non-invasive medical treatments of conditions such as tumours or gallstones. This technology passes individual beams harmlessly through tissue; the beams converge on a target where their effects are concentrated, like light passing through a magnifying glass to ignite paper.
‘We figured out at an atomic level why certain materials are so great at mechanically responding to an electric field by changing shape or size,’ said lead author Michael Manley of ORNL. ‘The finding provides a basis for high-performance actuators and sensors.’ Compared to traditional polycrystalline materials, the newer piezoelectric crystals generate a greater mechanical force in response to an applied electric field.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory http://tinyurl.com/j57s466

Scientists at the University of Exeter have developed a pioneering new technique that could revolutionise the surgical treatment of epilepsy.
The team of scientists, led by Dr Marc Goodfellow and Professor John Terry, have developed the ground-breaking new method that can identify the specific regions of the brain that trigger seizures in people with epilepsy.

The new technique is designed to help surgeons and neurologists measure the relative contribution to the occurrence of seizures made by different brain regions, and so determine which regions to remove to have most benefit to the individual.

At present, people with epilepsy are treated initially through medication, which aims to dramatically reduce or remove the threat of seizures. However anti-epilepsy drugs prove ineffective in around one-third of people. In these cases, patients can elect to undergo surgery to remove small parts of the brain – which does not impact healthy brain function – but which can help reduce the chance of experiencing seizures.
Surgeons record electrical activity from the surface of the brain and study the electrical rhythms to attempt to identify the brain regions where seizures begin. However, current approaches are only partially effective with around 50% of people with epilepsy seeing significant long-term improvements following surgery.
The new method devised by the scientists, which used state-of-the-art mathematical modelling procedures, can more accurately distinguish the brain regions that are the source of seizure activity from those that become involved as a result of a seizure starting.

Professor Terry, Director of the EPSRC Centre for Predictive Modelling in Healthcare and an expert in Biological Modelling from Exeter’s Mathematics department said: ‘This research has the potential to dramatically improve surgical success rates for those patients who need it, and so also dramatically improve their quality of life.

‘The potential is truly outstanding. It gives surgeons valuable information on how different brain regions contribute to seizures, enabling them to predict the outcome of different surgical strategies and so better plan surgery.
‘Imagine someone was in a theatre and sending text messages to random audience members, making their phones ring. Current techniques are in essence akin to removing those people who receive the messages – they are contributing to the disruption and so removing them could make a difference. But clearly it would be better to identify and remove the individual sending out the messages – the original source. That is what our methods achieve – identifying the original source.’

University of Exeterwww.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_527678_en.html

Overconsumption of alcohol can lead to errors in judgment, causing, for example, some people to get behind the wheel when they are impaired. To help imbibers easily and quickly know when they’ve had enough, scientists have developed a flexible, wearable patch that can detect a person’s blood-alcohol level from his or her sweat. The monitor works quickly and can send results wirelessly to a smartphone or other device.

In the U.S., one person dies every 53 minutes in an alcohol-related car accident, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently, ignition interlock devices are being marketed as a way to prevent drunk drivers from starting a car engine. But these are based on breath analysis, which can be affected by a number of factors including humidity, temperature and whether someone has used mouthwash. Recent research has demonstrated that sweat can be a more reliable real-time indicator of blood alcohol content. At least two transdermal sensors have been developed to measure alcohol levels in sweat, but users have to wait up to 2 hours for results. Joseph Wang, Patrick Mercier and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, set out to make a more practical version.

With temporary-tattoo paper, the researchers developed a patch that tests blood alcohol content non-invasively in three rapid steps. It induces sweat by delivering a small amount of the drug pilocarpine across the skin. An enzymatic reaction leads to the electrochemical detection of the alcohol content. And a flexible electronic circuit board transmits the data via a Bluetooth connection to a mobile device or laptop. The steps take less than 8 minutes from start to finish. In addition to connecting to vehicles’ ignition interlock systems, the sensor could be a simple tool for bartenders, friends or law enforcement to use, the researchers say.

American Chemical Society www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2016/acs-presspac-august-3-2016/detecting-blood-alcohol-content-with-an-electronic-skin-patch.html

TAU researcher’s cutting-edge innovation pinpoints top candidates for assisted reproductive technology. More than 10percent of American women aged 15-44 struggle to conceive or maintain full-term pregnancies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Assisted reproductive technology (ART), through which eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab and then returned to a woman’s uterus, is often the last resort for reproductively-challenged couples. But the physical, emotional, and financial toll they exact is high because the success rates of ART treatments are low – only 20-30percent, according to the CDC.
New microscopic technology from Tel Aviv University promises to be a game-changer in the field of reproductive assistance. A team of TAU scientists have devised a new method of microscopy allowing scientists to perform clinical sperm analysis without the use of staining, which can affect the viability of sperm samples.
Sperm cells are nearly transparent under standard microscopy methods. Their optical properties differ only slightly from those of their surroundings, resulting in a weak image contrast. Sperm cells cannot be stained, if fertilization is the goal, because the process might damage the resulting fetuses. The challenge is to pinpoint strong sperm candidates without staining, while still being able to characterize their viability.
The research was led by Dr. Natan Shaked, PhD, of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at TAU’s Faculty of Engineering and his masters student, Dr. Miki Hifler, MD. Sperm cells for the study were obtained from the Male Fertility Clinic at Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
There are two effective ART methods available today. The first is in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which a woman is treated with drugs that cause her ovaries to produce multiple eggs. These are placed in a Petri dish with a man’s sperm for fertilization for three to five days, then implanted in the woman’s uterus. The second is intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), in which a single sperm is injected into a mature egg and then transferred to a woman’s uterus. Dr. Shaked’s method is applicable to both methods, but is especially helpful in ICSI.
‘Until now, clinicians have chosen the best’ sperm according to their speed, but speed is not necessarily an indicator of DNA quality,’ Dr. Shaked says. ‘Some of the best sperm candidates are slow or even immobile because their tails have malfunctioned. If we can better determine the full structure and composition of the sperm, the success rate of ART treatments will be higher. Success means more births without congenital defects. In cases where sample staining is impossible – such as in vitro fertilization and ICSI – our device provides a promising new direction.’
His new device, a small ‘black box’ attached to an existing microscope, is smaller, cost-effective, and easier to align than conventional interferometric imaging methods. It is joined to new automated software that produces a thickness map of the sample and other physical parameters to evaluate the sperm’s viability in real time.
Dr. Shaked believes his new imaging process, which harnesses phase imaging methods to record the passage of light through a sample to assess its thickness, can quantify the quality of sperm used in ART, leading to more successful ART treatments.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University http://tinyurl.com/h5665oc