Topic
Brain and nervous system
How neurological conditions are understood and treated, read through the science and the trials.
This page collects every article by Dr. Damon Tojjar in this topic. For all topics see browse by topic, and for the source-anchored record see damontojjar.com/record.
Articles in this topic (19)
- The 2024 McDonald Criteria: How Multiple Sclerosis Is Diagnosed Now
The short answerMultiple sclerosis is now diagnosed using the 2024 revisions of the McDonald criteria, published in September 2025 in The Lancet Neurology by an...
- ARIA: What Amyloid Antibody Brain Imaging Changes Mean
ARIA stands for amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, the swelling and small bleeds that show up on brain MRI scans in some people taking the newer anti-amyloid...
- Asymptomatic Carotid Narrowing: What CREST-2 Tells Us
The short answerCREST-2 asked a question that had gone unanswered for a generation: when someone has severe narrowing of a carotid artery but no symptoms, does a...
- Bell Palsy: What the Steroid and Antiviral Evidence Shows
What does the evidence say about treating Bell palsy?The American Academy of Neurology's evidence-based guideline update on Bell palsy reaches two clear and unequal...
- Blood Tests for Alzheimer: What p-tau217 Can and Cannot Do
The short answerA blood test for p-tau217 can now help a specialist judge whether Alzheimer's disease pathology is likely present in a person who already has memory...
- Why CGRP Drugs Became First Line for Migraine Prevention
The short answerIn March 2024, the American Headache Society published a position statement in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain declaring that calcitonin...
- How Perfusion Imaging Extended the Stroke Treatment Window
The short answerFor decades, the clock governed stroke care: miss the treatment window and the door closed. Perfusion imaging changed that by letting clinicians see...
- Aspirin Plus Clopidogrel After Minor Stroke: Reading POINT and CHANCE
The short answer is that the 21-day window for aspirin plus clopidogrel after a minor stroke or high-risk transient ischemic attack (TIA) did not come from one...
- Established Status Epilepticus: What the ESETT Trial Settled
The short answerThe Established Status Epilepticus Treatment Trial (ESETT), published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019, compared three second-line...
- How CGRP Drives Migraine: From Mechanism to Medicine
The short answerMigraine research converged on calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP, because this neuropeptide sits at the center of the trigeminovascular...
- How to Read an Alzheimer Drug Trial: CDR-SB and What Counts as Meaningful
A modern Alzheimer drug trial usually rises or falls on a single number: the gap between the treated group and the placebo group on a scale called the CDR-SB. When...
- Mobile Stroke Units: Does Bringing the CT to the Patient Help
The short answerFor patients eligible for clot-dissolving drugs, bringing the CT scanner to the patient does appear to help. Mobile stroke units, which are...
- Nerve Conduction Studies and EMG: What They Actually Measure
What do these tests actually measure?Nerve conduction studies measure how fast and how strongly an electrical signal travels along a nerve, while electromyography,...
- Painful Diabetic Neuropathy: How the AAN Graded the Evidence
When the American Academy of Neurology updated its guideline on oral and topical treatment of painful diabetic polyneuropathy in 2022, it reached a conclusion that...
- Closing a PFO After Unexplained Stroke: What the Trials Support
For a person under 60 whose ischemic stroke has no other explanation after a careful workup, three randomized trials support closing a patent foramen ovale (PFO) to...
- Tenecteplase or Alteplase for Stroke: How to Read the Noninferiority Trials
The short answerIn January 2026, the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association issued a new guideline giving a Class I recommendation to treat...
- The Amyloid Hypothesis in Alzheimer Disease, Explained and Tested
The idea, and the test it finally facedThe amyloid hypothesis proposes that Alzheimer disease begins when a protein fragment called beta-amyloid accumulates in the...
- Thrombectomy for Large Core Stroke: What the 2023 Trials Changed
The short answerFor years, patients with a large area of already-dead brain tissue after a stroke were usually excluded from mechanical thrombectomy, the procedure...
- Time Is Brain: What the Stroke Treatment Evidence Actually Shows
The short answerThe stroke reperfusion trials tell a consistent story: opening a blocked brain artery helps, and the help shrinks with every hour of delay. A pooled...