Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Paralyzed Man Can Type Over 1,000 Words Using Brain Implant
ScienceAlert and AFP: Brainwave-Reading Implant Helps Paralyzed Man Who Can't Speak Spell Out 1,150 Words
A paralyzed man who cannot speak or type was able to spell out over 1,000 words using a neuroprosthetic device that translates his brain waves into full sentences, US researchers said Tuesday. "Anything is possible," was one of the man's favorite phrases to spell out, said the first author of a new study on the research, Sean Metzger of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). (Lawler, 11/9)
Stat: Brain Implants That Turn Thoughts To Speech Closer To Reality
In 2003, Pancho’s life changed forever. That’s when a car crash sent the 20-year-old farm worker into emergency surgery to repair damage to his stomach. The operation went well, but the next day, a blood clot caused by the procedure cut off oxygen to his brain stem, leaving him paralyzed and unable to speak. (Molteni, 11/8)
In other brain research —
The New York Times: Brain Stimulation Could Limit The Urge To Binge Eat, Study Says
What if an uncontrollable urge to rapidly eat large amounts of food is rooted in an impaired brain circuit? If that were the case, people who live with binge eating disorder — a psychiatric diagnosis — might be no more at fault for overeating than a patient with Parkinson’s disease is for their tremors. That question led doctors to try a new treatment different from anything ever attempted to help people with this common but underreported eating disorder. At least 3 percent of the population has it, said Dr. Casey Halpern, a neurosurgeon at the University of Pennsylvania. (Kolata, 11/8)
The New York Times: Do Concussions Cause CTE? Sports Doctors And Scientists Disagree
For the first time since 2016, one of the most influential groups guiding doctors, trainers and sports leagues on concussions met last month to decide, among other things, if it was time to recognize the causal relationship between repeated head hits and the degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E. Despite mounting evidence and a highly regarded U.S. government agency recently acknowledging the link, the group all but decided it was not. Leaders of the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport, meeting in Amsterdam, signaled that it would continue its long practice of casting doubt on the connection between the ravages of head trauma and sports. (Belson, 11/8)
