Deans' stroke musings: Neuroprotective, Neuroplastic, and Neurobehavioral Effects of Daily Treatment With Levetiracetam in Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

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.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Neuroprotective, Neuroplastic, and Neurobehavioral Effects of Daily Treatment With Levetiracetam in Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

So whom is going to test this out in humans and for stroke? Anyone?
http://nnr.sagepub.com/content/27/9/878.abstract?etoc

¹Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
²Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Amy K. Wagner, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh, 3471 Fifth Avenue, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. Email: wagnerak@upmc.edu

Abstract

Background. Prophylactic treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) has been recommended to prevent early seizure onset in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, the potential neuroprotective and/or detrimental effects of prophylactic AED treatment on behavioral and cognitive function after TBI are not well studied.

Objective. To investigate the effects of a novel AED, levitiracetam (LEV), on behavioral and cognitive function after experimental TBI in rats. Methods. Adult male rats were administered LEV (intraperitoneal 50 mg/kg) or vehicle (saline; SL) daily for 20 days beginning 1 day after controlled cortical impact (CCI; 2.8 mm; 4 m/s) or sham surgery. Beam performance (days 1-6), Y-maze (day 7), and Morris water maze (days 14-19) postinjury testing was assessed.

Results. Daily LEV treatment improved motor function, increased novel arm exploration in the Y-maze, elicited greater hippocampal cell sparing, and decreased contusion volumes compared with CCI/SL rats. Daily LEV administration also reversed a TBI-induced decrease in regional glutamate transporter expression and neuroplastic marker proteins present 20 days post-CCI. Also, daily LEV treatment decreased regional IL-1β expression after TBI.

Conclusions. These results suggest that daily LEV treatment has beneficial effects on histological, molecular, and behavioral elements of neurological recovery after TBI, in part, via modulation of neuroinflammatory and excitatory pathways.