For 13 years, reporter Kevin Johnson and his colleagues at USA Today have tracked nine people who were released from solitary confinement in Texas on the same day in 2002. All vowed never to return. All suffered from a form of “sensory paralysis” that impacted their ability to adapt to life on the outside. And all eventually found their way back to solitary for another stretch. (via The Marshall Project)

Kevin Johnson | USA Today | November 4, 2015

IOWA PARK, Texas — Silvestre Segovia had vowed many times over that he would never return to solitary confinement.

Languishing in the vast Texas prison system’s solitary confinement wings for more than a decade had exacted a heavy emotional toll. And there was so much to discover about a new world that confronted him on a much-anticipated exit that chilly morning, Nov. 15, 2002. A loyal girlfriend waited 255 miles away. There might even be a market for the catalog of detailed sketches that he had created to pass the years of numbing isolation.

But where to begin? Continue reading »

By Lino Becerra, James Bishop, Gabi Barmettler, Jennifer Yanhua Xie, Edita Navratilova, Frank Porreca, and David Borsook | Journal of Neurophysiology | October 21, 2015

Abstract:

A number of drugs, including triptans, promote migraine chronification in susceptible individuals. In rats, a period of triptan administration over 7 days can produce “latent sensitization” (14 days after discontinuation of drug) demonstrated as enhanced sensitivity to presumed migraine triggers such as environmental stress and lowered threshold for electrically induced cortical spreading depression (CSD). Here, we have used fMRI to evaluate the early changes in brain networks at day 7 of sumatriptan administration that may induce latent sensitization as well as the potential response to stress. Following continuous infusion of sumatriptan, rats were scanned to measure changes in resting state networks and the response to bright light environmental stress. Rats receiving sumatriptan, but not saline infusion, showed significant differences in default mode, autonomic, basal ganglia, salience, and sensorimotor networks. Bright light stress produced CSD-like responses in sumatriptan treated but not control rats. Our data show the first brain related changes in a rat model of medication overuse headache and suggest that this approach could be used to evaluate the multiple brain networks involved that may promote this condition.

Read the full article here.

By Richard Wolf and Kevin Johnson | USA Today | September 14, 2015

Introduction

‘EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK…THERE’S A PROBLEM’

If there is such a thing as a lock for the death penalty, the case against Daniel Higgins appeared to be just that.

Already sought for sexually assaulting a child, Higgins killed Sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Naylorlast October with a point-blank shot to the head, making him the only deputy slain in the department’s 130-year history. “I wanted him dead,” Sheriff Gary Painter says of the murderer.

But Naylor’s widow, Denise Davis, said she couldn’t bear the likely rounds of appeals that could stretch on for decades. Higgins was allowed to plead guilty and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

The death penalty in America may be living on borrowed time. Continue reading »

By Nadia Barakat, Mark P. Gorman, Leslie Benson, Lino Becerra, and David Borsook | NeuroImage: Clinical | September 6, 2015

Abstract:

Pain is a significant problem in diseases affecting the spinal cord, including demyelinating disease. To date, studies have examined the reliability of clinical measures for assessing and classifying the severity of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and also to evaluate SCI-related pain. Most of this research has focused on adult populations and patients with traumatic injuries. Little research exists regarding pediatric spinal cord demyelinating disease. One reason for this is the lack of reliable and useful approaches to measuring spinal cord changes since currently used diagnostic imaging has limited specificity for quantitative measures of demyelination. No single imaging technique demonstrates sufficiently high sensitivity or specificity to myelin, and strong correlation with clinical measures. However, recent advances in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) measures are considered promising in providing increasingly useful and specific information on spinal cord damage. Findings from these quantitative imaging modalities correlate with the extent of demyelination and remyelination. These techniques may be of potential use for defining the evolution of the disease state, how it may affect specific spinal cord pathways, and contribute to the management of pediatric demyelination syndromes. Since pain is a major presenting symptom in patients with transverse myelitis, the disease is an ideal model to evaluate imaging methods to define these regional changes within the spinal cord. In this review we summarize (1) pediatric demyelinating conditions affecting the spinal cord; (2) their distinguishing features; and (3) current diagnostic and classification methods with particular focus on pain pathways. We also focus on concepts that are essential in developing strategies for the detection, monitoring, treatment and repair of pediatric myelitis.

Read the full article here.

By David Borsook, Rosanna Veggeberg, Nathalie Erpelding, Ronald Borra, Clas Linnman, Rami Burstein, and Lino Becerra | The Neuroscientist | August 19, 2015

Abstract:

The insula, a “cortical hub” buried within the lateral sulcus, is involved in a number of processes including goal-directed cognition, conscious awareness, autonomic regulation, interoception, and somatosensation. While some of these processes are well known in the clinical presentation of migraine (i.e., autonomic and somatosensory alterations), other more complex behaviors in migraine, such as conscious awareness and error detection, are less well described. Since the insula processes and relays afferent inputs from brain areas involved in these functions to areas involved in higher cortical function such as frontal, temporal, and parietal regions, it may be implicated as a brain region that translates the signals of altered internal milieu in migraine, along with other chronic pain conditions, through the insula into complex behaviors. Here we review how the insula function and structure is altered in migraine. As a brain region of a number of brain functions, it may serve as a model to study new potential clinical perspectives for migraine treatment.

Read the full paper here.