Deans' stroke musings: Sports concussion research funded at University of Pennsylvania

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Sports concussion research funded at University of Pennsylvania

This should be eminently applicable to strokes/TBIs. I'll have to check if any of the amino acids listed have published research.
http://www.medcitynews.com/2012/01/sports-concussion-research-funded-at-university-of-pennsylvania/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sports-concussion-research-funded-at-university-of-pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania has won funding for a study of a concussion treatment for athletes.
Dr. Peter LeRoux, associate professor of neurosurgery, won the$250,000, three-year Dana Foundation Clinical Neuroscience grant.
Dr. Akiva S. Cohen is an associate professor of neurology, neurosurgery and pediatrics at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Cohen and his team found that giving three branched-chain amino acids — leucine, isoleucine and valine — to animals with brain injuries could restore the balance of neurochemicals in the injured portion of the brain and help restore cognitive abilities following an injury, a statement from the university said.

BCAAs are needed to produce two neurotransmitters — glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA. The neurotransmitters work together to keep up the right balance of brain activity. Glutamate excites neurons and stimulates them to fire and GABA inhibits the firing. If that balance is undermined and creates too much excitement or too little, the brain doesn’t function properly, the statement said.
The grant will expand that research to athletes. LeRoux will work with Cohen and Penn neurology resident Matthew Kirschen to investigate dietary BCAAs in patients being treated for sports concussions.
Concussion tests and care for concussions have been a significant trend in healthcare and medical device development in recent years as awareness of the long-term effects from concussions from school and professional athletics, as well as brain injuries stemming from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has increased.
The Cleveland Clinic is working on several concussion-related projects such as a blood test and an app to aiddoctors and athletic trainers in diagnosing concussions. Infrascan, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to market its handheld medical device to detect brain bleeds from head trauma.