New research which suggests a direct link between smoking and brain damage will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry. Researchers, led by Debapriya Ghosh and Dr Anirban Basu from the Indian National Brain Research Center (NBRC), have found that a compound in tobacco provokes white blood cells in the central nervous system to attack healthy cells, leading to severe neurological damage.

One of the primary ways of treating brain cancer is surgically removing the tumors. The risk of this sort of procedure is obvious -- it involves cutting away tissue from the brain, potentially severing nerve fibers and causing neurological damage.

A sweeping review of research studies of aspartame says there is no evidence that the non-nutritive sweetener causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in humans

Researchers have called for a national database to be set up to identify major complications arising from epidural pain relief after a small number of serious problems were identified during a six-year UK study, according to the April issue of Anaesthesia.