"Linking Students and Survivors" - An Introduction to the MIT Brain Trust

For those of you in the Boston area, this is definitely a group worth checking out! MIT Brain Trust, a service organization run by students, aims to provide real-world opportunities to all members of the community living with various brain-related conditions. The organization brings together MIT students and those with neurological impairments by promoting Brain Injury Awareness and hosting various fundraising events and social gatherings. Moreover, it collaborates with the Healing Exchange Brain Trust, a non-profit based in Cambridge that helps patients with brain-conditions communicate with others about brain research and support issues.

One of the primary programs of MIT Brain Trust is the Brain Trust Buddies, a program that enables survivors of brain-conditions and students to enjoy a day together and share their experiences. Activities they participate in include going to the movies, sailing in Boston Harbor, and visiting the museums.  

Another big initiative of the organization is to host lectures by professors, researchers, and patients once per semester. This is a great opportunity to learn more about brain diseases and research. Past topics include Humor and the Brain, Hypnosis, Music and the Brain, Autism, and Epilepsy.

For more information or to get involved, check out their website here:

MIT Brain Trust: Linking Students and Survivors

"Disability Etiquette: Tips on Interacting with People with Disabilities," by the United Spinal Association

For anyone out there, disabled or not, who wants to learn to “interact more effectively with people with disabilities,” the United Spinal Association has a booklet just for you. In “Disability Etiquette: Tips on Interacting with People with Disabilities,” you’ll read about how to better understand, communicate, and work with others who may be different than you. From teaching you the importance of “asking before you help” to “speaking directly to a person with a disability, not to his companion,” this booklet has it all!

Click the following link to read "Disability Etiquette: Tips on Interacting with People with Disabilities”

Also, don't forget to check out more of the Free Publications the United Spinal Association has to offer!

"New research reveals exactly how the human brain adapts to injury"

The brain is an amazing human mechanism, as proven by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. They’ve discovered, through a combination of neural imaging methods, that when an area of the brain is injured, other areas will band together to perform the task once assigned to the damaged area.

Researchers temporarily disabled the subjects’ Wernicke area –the area of the brain that plays a large part in forming sentences—and watched what happened. They noticed that the areas which helped the Wernicke area with its task were also impaired. However, they also noticed that the areas closest to and directly across from the affected area stepped up to help form sentences. A section of the frontal lobe, also, took charge “recruiting” areas with the same functions as the impaired Wernicke area.

This capacity for the brain to fix itself to the best of its ability shows just how amazing the human body is and gives hope to those who sustain these traumatic injuries that their bodies aren’t just giving up.

Check out the below article on MedicalXpress to learn more!

“New research reveals exactly how the human brain adapts to injury”

How young is too young to play tackle football?

Should parents let their children play tackle football despite the risks of concussions and their potential long-term consequences? This is a question that NPR’s Tom Goldman investigated in his recent article, Head Injuries Rattle Even Devout Football Parents (click the link to read).

Goldman discovered through his observations of youth football in Texas, where he aptly mentions the sport is often considered a religion, that while parents are increasingly more aware about concussions and the dangers they pose, many are still willing to let their kids gear up. It is currently estimated, according to USA Football, that nearly 3 million children, ages 6 to 14, participate in organized tackle football. As Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon and co-author of Concussions and Our Kids, is referenced saying in this article, “Children are among the most vulnerable to concussion because of weak necks, immature musculature, and brains that are still developing.” Per Dr. Cantu’s recommendation, children under age 14 should not play tackle football.

Wesley Rolan, one of the parents interviewed, said he will let his 8-year-old son play until he suffers a concussion and then “that’s it—no more tackle.” When it's your child's brain at stake, is it even worth letting it get to that point?

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For more about the risks young athletes face, click the link to read about research done recently at Virginia Tech that shows youth football players suffer similar degrees of head impacts that college players do. Also, check out this video version of this article below.

Stone Phillips reporting for PBS Newshour: “ A Hard-Hitting Story: Young Football Players Take Big-League Hits to Head”

Watch Young Football Players Take Big-League Hits to Head on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Serious Injuries in Children due to Child Abuse Rise from 1997 - 2009

After studying data gathered from 1997 to 2009, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have concluded that instances of serious injury due to child abuse are increasing. According to results of this study, which considered “serious injuries” as those resulting in hospitalization, the overall rate for children 18 years and younger has risen about 5%. Most alarmingly, the rate of injury for children 1 and under is up 10.9%.

As one author of this study, Dr. John M. Leventhal, notes, “These results highlight the challenges of helping parents do better by their children and the importance of effective prevention programs to reduce serious abusive injuries in young children.”

To read more about this story, click here for Alexandra Sifferlin’s article in TIME or click here for Denise Mann’s article in HealthDay. Also, to read the report as published in the journal Pediatrics, click here:Incidence of Serious Injuries Due to Physical Abuse in the United States: 1997 to 2009