Dr. Gary Steinberg

Recently, it was shown to be beneficial for epilepsy.

In fact, the two major trials, prospective randomized trials that were done, were led by physicians, neurologists at Stanford, and showed the benefit of stimulation of the brain to treat very difficult epilepsy.

So this, I think, is going to be the future, is more and more minimally invasive.

In fact, we're using some of these techniques to even treat psychiatric disorders like depression, obsessive compulsive behavior.

Right, so a transient ischemic attack, or TIA, is a reversible stroke.

It results in a temporary loss of function, such as inability to move, partial paralysis or complete paralysis, but then it resolves.

Inability to speak, visual problems, double vision, blurred vision, loss of vision.

It can cause slurred speech.

or difficulty understanding language, imbalance problems, walking, even cognitive problems.

So it can vary depending on what part of the brain it affects.

In the past, it was defined as a neurologic deficit due to lack of blood flow that lasted less than 24 hours.

But

Now that we have such sophisticated imaging like MR scan, some of these patients who have what would have been considered a TIA before, lasting minutes or up to 24 hours, on MR scan have been shown to have a little stroke.

So now the definition is a little different.

If you do an MR scan and it shows a new abnormality, a new stroke, then it's called a stroke rather than a TIA.

So there's a little overlap there, but it's a temporary loss of neurologic function due to lack of blood flow or in some cases a hemorrhage.

Yeah, it's much less common than a stroke involving the brain, probably because there's less tissue involved.

The spinal cord is supplied by an anterior spinal artery.

That's an artery on this side.

And it's supplied by two arteries, posterior spinal on the backside.