Posts tagged brain damage
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
![Canadian Team Reports World’s First Successful Clinical Trial to Protect the Brain From Damage Caused by Stroke
A team of Canadian scientists and clinicians, led by Dr. Michael Hill of the Calgary Stroke Program at Foothills Medical Centre and University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), have demonstrated that a neuroprotectant drug, developed by Dr. Michael Tymianski at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, located at the Toronto Western Hospital, protects the human brain against the damaging effects of stroke.
The study, “Safety and efficacy of NA-1 for neuroprotection in iatrogenic stroke after endovascular aneurysm repair: a randomized controlled trial,” published online today in The Lancet Neurology, was conducted concurrently with a laboratory study published in Science Translational Medicine, that predicted the benefits of the stroke drug.
This landmark clinical trial was a randomized, double blinded, multi-centre trial that was conducted in Canada and the USA. The study evaluated the effectiveness of NA-1[Tat-NR2B9c] when it was administered after the onset of small strokes that are incurred by patients who undergo neurointerventional procedures to repair brain aneurysms. This type of small ischemic stroke occurs in over 90% of aneurysm patients after such a procedure, but usually does not cause overt neurological disability.](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mblbknNMT41rog5d1o1_500.jpg)
Canadian Team Reports World’s First Successful Clinical Trial to Protect the Brain From Damage Caused by Stroke
A team of Canadian scientists and clinicians, led by Dr. Michael Hill of the Calgary Stroke Program at Foothills Medical Centre and University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), have demonstrated that a neuroprotectant drug, developed by Dr. Michael Tymianski at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, located at the Toronto Western Hospital, protects the human brain against the damaging effects of stroke.
The study, “Safety and efficacy of NA-1 for neuroprotection in iatrogenic stroke after endovascular aneurysm repair: a randomized controlled trial,” published online today in The Lancet Neurology, was conducted concurrently with a laboratory study published in Science Translational Medicine, that predicted the benefits of the stroke drug.
This landmark clinical trial was a randomized, double blinded, multi-centre trial that was conducted in Canada and the USA. The study evaluated the effectiveness of NA-1[Tat-NR2B9c] when it was administered after the onset of small strokes that are incurred by patients who undergo neurointerventional procedures to repair brain aneurysms. This type of small ischemic stroke occurs in over 90% of aneurysm patients after such a procedure, but usually does not cause overt neurological disability.
A University of Arizona professor is overseeing the manufacture of an experimental drug that could help reduce brain damage after a stroke.
The drug, known as 3K3A-APC, currently is undergoing clinical trials in Europe to determine its safety in humans after proving effective in animal models at reducing brain damage and improving motor skills after a stroke when given in combination with another commonly used stroke therapy.
Thomas Davis, professor of pharmacology in the UA College of Medicine, was chosen to direct the manufacture of the drug for human trials after co-authoring a recent paper in the journal Stroke that pointed to the drug’s effectiveness in rats and mice when used in conjunction with a clot-busting therapy known as tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA.
While tPA is commonly given to sufferers of ischemic stroke, which results from an obstruction in a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain, the therapy poses significant challenges when administered alone, including a limited treatment window, Davis said.
"It has to be given within the first three to four and a half hours of the stroke," Davis said. "It only works in 10 percent of the patients, and it causes bleeding, so tPA alone isn’t that effective."
A new study from The University of Queensland shows monitoring the brain of stroke patients using Quantitative EEG (QEEG) studies could inform treatments and therefore, minimising brain damage of stroke victims.
“The main goals of this research were to evaluate key findings, identify common trends and determine what the future priorities should be, both for research and for translating this to best inform clinical management of stroke patients,” Dr Finnigan from UQ’s Centre for Clinical Research said.
The review of outcomes from hundreds of patients has highlighted that QEEG indicators are particularly informative in two ways.
“Firstly they can help predict long-term deficits caused by stroke, … In addition, they could provide immediate information on how patients are responding to treatments and guide decisions about follow-on treatments, even before stroke symptoms change,” Dr Finnigan said.
Computers may help patients restore movement after stroke
New research suggests that patients whose mobility has been limited by stroke may one day use their imagination and a computer link to move their hands.
Leuthardt
In patients, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown they can detect the brain simply thinking about moving a partially or completely paralyzed hand. The half of the brain that normally thinks such thoughts and moves the hand can no longer do so because of stroke damage. Instead, the signal comes from the undamaged half of the brain.
The new study suggests it may be possible to harness these signals to restore a fuller range of movement in the patient’s limbs.
“We’ve known for some time that the brain can reroute or otherwise adapt its circuits to cope with an injury,” says senior author Eric Leuthardt, MD, associate professor of neurosurgery, of biomedical engineering and of neurobiology. “Now we have proof-of-principle that we can use technology to aid that process.”
To demonstrate the potential to help restore movement, scientists connected brain signals detected by an electrode-studded cap to the movements of a cursor on a computer screen. In 30 minutes or less, patients learned to control the movement of the cursor with thoughts of moving their impaired hand. Researchers are now working on a motorized glove that will make the imagined movements a reality.
The results are available online in The Journal of Neural Engineering.
Leuthardt, who is director of Washington University’s Center for Innovation in Neuroscience and Technology, is a pioneer in the field of brain-computer interfaces, or devices that allow the brain to communicate directly with computers to restore abilities lost to injury or disease.
Much of Leuthardt’s research has focused on patients with epilepsy who are undergoing surgery to remove the part of the brain where their seizures originate. He uses the electrode grids temporarily implanted on the surface of the brain to pinpoint areas where the seizures begin. With the patients’ permissions, Leuthardt also uses the implants to gather and analyze detailed information on brain activity for future use in brain-computer interfaces. This approach laid the foundations for the technique now being applied to the stroke population.
In the new research, first author David Bundy, a graduate student, worked with four patients who had suffered strokes that caused extensive damage on one side of the brain. All were experiencing paralysis or significant difficulty moving the hand on the opposite side of the body.
The brain signals that control movement are low-frequency signals, which makes them relatively easy to detect with electrodes on the outside of the skull. Researchers fitted patients with an electrode-studded cap connected to a computer, and asked them to perform a finger-tapping activity. Depending on a cue flashed on a screen in front of them, the patients either tapped the fingers of their unimpaired hand or imagined tapping the fingers of the impaired hand. Scientists used the cap to identify signals in healthy part of the brain that accompanied the imaginary movements.
The researchers are now developing motorized braces that can be controlled by similar signals, with the goal of restoring full movement in weak or paralyzed limbs.
“This is an exciting development that opens up new opportunities to help even more patients overcome limitations imposed by brain damage or degeneration,” Leuthardt says.