Motor Improvement of Skilled Forelimb Use Induced by Treatment with Growth Hormone and Rehabilitation Is Dependent on the Onset of the Treatment After Cortical Ablation

Demonstrated in humans already, but I bet no one is putting this into a protocol that can be used around the world for rehab. YOU will have to bring this to your doctors and DEMAND this intervention because your hospital will do nothing with this until you are dead. Can be done days after the stroke so your doctors have plenty of time to administer this.

Motor Improvement of Skilled Forelimb Use Induced by Treatment with Growth Hormone and Rehabilitation Is Dependent on the Onset of the Treatment After Cortical Ablation

Margarita Heredia ,1 Jesús Palomero ,1 Antonio de la Fuente ,1 José María Criado ,1 Javier Yajeya ,1 Jesús Devesa ,2 Pablo Devesa ,3 José Luis Vicente-Villardón ,4 and Adelaida S. Riolobos 1 1Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Neuroscience Institute of Castilla y León (INCyL), University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain 2Scientific Direction, Medical Centre Foltra, Teo, Spain 3Research and Development, Medical Centre Foltra, Teo, Spain 4Department of Statistics, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Correspondence should be addressed to Margarita Heredia; mheredia@usal.es and Jesús Devesa; devesa.jesus@gmail.com
Received 24 March 2017; Revised 20 December 2017; Accepted 8 January 2018
Academic Editor: Stuart C. Mangel
Copyright© 2018MargaritaHerediaetal.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
We previously demonstrated that the administration of GH immediately after severe motor cortex injury, in rats, followed by rehabilitation, improved the functionality of the affected limb and reexpressed nestin in the contralateral motor cortex. Here, we analyze whether these GH effects depend on a time window after the injury and on the reexpression of nestin and actin. Injured animals were treated with GH (0.15mg/kg/day) or vehicle, at days 7, 14, and 35 after cortical ablation. Rehabilitation was applied at short and long term (LTR) after the lesion and then sacrificed. Nestin and actin were analyzed by immunoblotting in the contralateral motor cortex. Giving GH at days 7 or 35 after the lesion, but not 14 days after it, led to a remarkable improvement in the functionality of the affected paw. Contralateral nestin and actin reexpression was clearly higher in GH-treated animals, probably because compensatory brain plasticity was established. GH and immediate rehabilitation are key for repairing brain injuries, with the exception of a critical time period: GH treatment starting 14 days after the lesion. Our data also indicate that there is not a clear plateau in the recovery from a brain injury in agreement with our data in human patients.
1. Introduction
Brain repair after an injury involves a number of complex processes. Abundant evidence indicates that growth hormone (GH) administration, added to rehabilitation, can significantly contribute to the recovery of an acquired brain injury, both in animal models [1–9] and in human patients [10–15], regardless of whether the patient is GH-deficient (GHD)ornot[14–18].However,itisnotclearwhetherthere is a period of time after a brain injury during which GH can
exert its positive effects for brain repair. While it seems logical that early GH administration and rehabilitation after brain damage should provide faster and better recovery [14–16], recent data from our group demonstrate that brain repair in humans can be achieved by administering GH together with rehabilitation even months or years after the injury happened [10, 16–18]. These data challenge the classical concept that there is a “plateau” for brain recovery following an injury after which few more positive improvements could be obtained.