News Releases

Mark E. Molliver, M.D., a professor emeritus of neuroscience and neurology in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine whose discoveries had a significant impact on analyzing the structure of the brain and its response to drugs; and whose skills as an influential teacher became legendary over a nearly half-century career, died on May 10 at The Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications following cardiac arrest. He was 75.

A study on a handful of people with suspected mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) suggests that a device that sends continuous electrical impulses to specific “memory” regions of the brain appears to increase neuronal activity. Results of the study using deep brain stimulation, a therapy already used in some patients with Parkinson’s disease and depression, may offer hope for at least some with AD, an intractable disease with no cure.

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that a protein that transports sodium, potassium and chloride may hold clues to how glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest type of brain cancer, moves and invades nearby healthy brain tissue.

A new type of anti-epilepsy medication that selectively targets proteins in the brain that control excitability may significantly reduce seizure frequency in people whose recurrent seizures have been resistant to even the latest medications, new Johns Hopkins-led research suggests.

Based on their clinical experience and observations, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians and psychologists say that more than one-third of the patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit for treatment of intractable seizures have been discovered to have stress-triggered symptoms rather than a true seizure disorder.

A $25 million gift has enabled Johns Hopkins to establish a new center to develop novel therapies for the neurodegenerative disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. Much of the center’s research will focus on using stem cells individually derived from ALS patients to develop new model systems to investigate how nerve cells degenerate, as tools to screen new drug therapies, and to develop stem cell therapies as transplants to potentially slow or reverse the disease.

Johns Hopkins scientists have published laboratory data refuting studies that suggest blood vessels that form within brain cancers are largely made up of cancer cells.  The theory of cancer-based blood vessels calls into question the use and value of anticancer drugs that target these blood vessels, including bevacizumab (Avastin).

Johns Hopkins neurologists report success with a new means of getting rid of potentially lethal blood clots in the brain safely without cutting through easily damaged brain tissue or removing large pieces of skull. The minimally invasive treatment, they report, increased the number of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) who could function independently by 10 to 15 percent six months following the procedure.

A symposium to be hosted by the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute (BSi) on Oct. 18 at the Baltimore Convention Center will bring together the pharmaceutical industry and academic-based research institutions with the common goal of exploring how the two can best work together to enhance and facilitate the discovery of new drugs.

A team of scientists, led by Johns Hopkins researchers, say they may have found a way to predict how quickly patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) will lose cognitive function by looking at ratios of two fatty compounds in their blood. The finding, they say, could provide useful information to families and caregivers, and might also suggest treatment targets for this heartbreaking and incurable neurodegenerative disorder.

Oxaliplatin, a platinum-based anticancer drug that’s made enormous headway in recent years against colorectal cancer, appears to cause nerve damage that may be permanent and worsens even months after treatment ends. The chemotherapy side effect, described by Johns Hopkins researchers in the September issue of Neurology, was discovered in what is believed to be the first effort to track oxaliplatin-based nerve damage through relatively cheap and easy punch skin biopsies.

A team of researchers says it has discovered why so many people undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), especially in newer high-strength machines, get vertigo, or the dizzy sensation of free-falling, while inside or when coming out of the tunnel-like machine.

A team led by scientists from Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health has discovered a genetic mutation for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and a related disease called frontotemporal dementia (FTD) that appears to account for more than a third of all inherited cases of these diseases.

Medical imaging experts at Johns Hopkins have reviewed the patient records of 302 men and women who had a much-needed X-ray of the blood vessels near the spinal cord and found that the procedure, often feared for possible complications of stroke and kidney damage, is safe and effective.

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists have completed a comprehensive map of genetic mutations occurring in the second-most common form of brain cancer, oligodendroglioma.  The findings, reported in the Aug. 4 issue of Science, also appear to reveal the biological cause of the tumors, they say.

The addition of a simple stent can help prevent potentially lethal blood vessel bulges in the brain from recurring after they are repaired in a minimally invasive "coiling" procedure, according to new research by Johns Hopkins physicians.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a technique that delivers gene therapy into human brain cancer cells using nanoparticles that can be freeze-dried and stored for up to three months prior to use.

Generic anti-epilepsy drugs, pharmaceutical products similar to brand-name versions, save consumers billions of dollars each year, but some are different enough from branded formulations that they may not be effective, particularly if patients switch between two generic drugs, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. A report on the study, published online and in an upcoming issue of Annals of Neurology, raises questions about whether some generic products are safe and effective when a narrow dose range separates patients from help and harm.

Johns Hopkins researchers have found a likely explanation for the slow growth of the most common childhood brain tumor, pilocytic astrocytoma.  Using tests on a new cell-based model of the tumor, they concluded that the initial process of tumor formation switches on a growth-braking tumor-suppressor gene, in a process similar to that seen in skin moles.

Blood vessels and supporting cells appear to be pivotal partners in repairing nerves ravaged by diabetic neuropathy, and nurturing their partnership with nerve cells might make the difference between success and failure in experimental efforts to regrow damaged nerves, Johns Hopkins researchers report in a new study.