Scientists have announced that they have discovered a new way to make the brain repair itself after a stroke, in a research that was published yesterday.
The researchers have claimed to discover a new method that could make the brain repair itself after a stroke. In their experiments that they had conducted experiments on rats, which were suffering from an induced stroke, that after their treatment there were much lesser number of rats hat were left paralysed. They hope that by this discovery could help to find newer treatments for stroke that might use the body’s own ability to heal itself.The research done by Ronald McKay of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Maryland, America, that was published last night in Nature magazine. It was explained that the team of scientists stimulated stem cells in the rat’s brains after they were initially starved of oxygen. They then used a protein to activate a receptor called as ‘Notch” on the stem cell.
They found that the receptor caused a "cascade" effect that created new brain cells after the stroke and that the treatment also improved the ability of remaining cells to survive with the lack of oxygen. Many of these rats that were given the treatment in Laboratory, were found to recover from their paralysis that they had suffered as a result of their stroke.
Explaining that other treatments are less successful because implanted cells are usually attacked by the body's immune system, the researchers are hopeful of their new discovery leading to new treatments for stroke using the body’s own stem cells to help in healing.
The researchers stated: "New cell therapies based on embryonic stem (ES) cells are supported by work in animal models of human disease. They are difficult to implement, however, because it is hard to grow tissue specific precursors in the laboratory and it is difficult to deliver them to diffuse disease sites in the body without stimulating an immune response."
"The results that we present here suggest a general model of stem cell expansion that applies to many precursor cells of clinical interest and that may lead to strategies that promote regenerative responses through the activation of endogenous cells."
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