Repurposed drug may offer diagnosis, treatment for traumatic nerve damage

We'll never know if this could help stroke survivors because we have NO leadership, strategy or followup on anything to do with stroke. But first we need to know if myelin is damaged during a stroke. Ask your doctor that question, I have not been able to get a concrete answer.
http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2016-11-repurposed-drug-diagnosis-treatment-traumatic.html
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center believe they have identified a new means of enhancing the body's ability to repair its own cells, which they hope will lead to better diagnosis and treatment of traumatic nerve injuries, like those sustained in car accidents, sports injuries, or in combat. In a study published today, the team showed that a drug previously approved for other purposes can 'wake up' damaged peripheral nerves and speed repair and functional recovery after injury.

The study appearing in EMBO Molecular Medicine, demonstrates for the first time that 4-aminopyridine (4AP), a drug currently used to treat patients with the chronic nerve disease, multiple sclerosis, has the unexpected property of promoting recovery from acute nerve damage. Although this drug has been studied for over 30 years for its ability to treat chronic diseases, this is the first demonstration of 4AP's benefit in treating acute nerve injury and the first time those benefits were shown to persist after treatment was stopped.
Study authors, John Elfar, M.D., associate professor of Orthopaedics, and Mark Noble, Ph.D., Martha M. Freeman, M.D., Professor in Biomedical Genetics, and their laboratory team, found that daily treatment with 4AP promotes repair of myelin, the insulating material that normally surrounds nerve fibers. When this insulation is damaged, as occurs in traumatic peripheral nerve injury, nerve cell function is impaired. These researchers found that 4AP treatment accelerates repair of myelin damage and improvement in nerve function.
These findings advance an area of research that has been stagnant for nearly 30 years and may address unmet needs of traumatically injured patients in the future. The current standard of care for traumatic peripheral nerve injury is "watchful waiting" to determine whether a nerve has the ability to spontaneously recover, or if it will require surgery.
The problem, says Elfar, a Sports Medicine surgeon specializing in hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder repairs, is that "the patient who may recover is recovering so slowly that nerve-dependent tissues are in jeopardy, and the patient who needs surgery has to wait for weeks for the diagnosis that surgery is appropriate. That delay means that surgery is less effective."
Elfar's and Noble's team, which includes Kuang-Ching Tseng, Ph.D., former graduate student in the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center and first author of the study, also found that treating mice with a single dose of 4AP one day after nerve crush injury improved muscle function within an hour. In this model, nerves are damaged, but not completely severed. The team believes this finding may suggest that 4AP could be used immediately after an injury to diagnose whether a nerve is severed, however further studies are required to determine if this will work in humans.