Deans' stroke musings: Neural stem cell transplant improves outcomes for chronic ischemic stroke at 12 months

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.

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Neural stem cell transplant improves outcomes for chronic ischemic stroke at 12 months

Your competent? doctor figured out how to use this earlier research to get you recovered, right? NO? So, YOU DON'T HAVE A FUNCTIONING STROKE DOCTOR, DO YOU?

Neural stem cells sustain natural killer cells that dictate recovery from brain inflammation January 2016 Almost a decade and your doctor is still clueless on how to get you recovered?

The latest here:

Neural stem cell transplant improves outcomes for chronic ischemic stroke at 12 months

ByRobert Herpen, MA

Fact checked byShenaz Bagha

Key takeaways:

At 12 months, patients demonstrated improved neurological function and better gait speed.
All adverse events, which initially worsened from baseline, spontaneously resolved.

Transplantation of neural stem cells improved neurologic and motor function for adults with chronic ischemic stroke at 12 months, according to a study presented at the International Stroke Conference.

“There are approximately 7 million chronic stroke survivors in the United States living with severe disability and little hope for recovery,” Gary K. Steinberg, MD, PhD, founder and co-director of the Stanford Stroke Center, told Healio.

stem cells_136697242 — New research has determined that neural stem cell implants improve outcomes at 12 months for those suffering chronic stroke. Image: Adobe Stock

As no other treatment aside from vagus nerve stimulation exists to restore function in patients with chronic stroke, Steinberg and colleagues sought to investigate the safety and efficacy of intracerebral transplantation of NR1, human embryonic-derived neural stem cells.

Their first-in-human clinical trial, which spanned 12 months, included 18 adults who were 6 to 60 months post-ischemic subcortical middle cerebral arterial stroke and recorded a Modified Rankin Scale score of 3 or 4. All participants were transplanted with 2.5 million, 5 million, 10 million or 20 million of NR1, with the primary outcome being total adverse events at 12 months as well as change in total Fugl-Meyer motor score (FMMS, 0-100) in both upper and lower extremities compared with baseline at 12 months. Secondary outcomes included performance on a gait speed test, Barthel Index (BI), NIH Stroke Scale score (NIHSS), Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) MRI, resting state fMRI and Fludeoxyglucose F 18 positron emission tomography (18F FDG PET).

Participants recorded mean increases of 12.1 points for total FMMS, 7.4 points for upper extremity FMMS, 4.7 points for lower extremity FMMS, along with mean changes of 7.7 points for BI, mean NIHSS improvement of 1.77, as well as substantial improvement in gait speed at 12 months.

Data further showed that 14 of 18 participants had a new transient FLAIR signal in premotor cortex that resolved at the 2-month mark, indicative of sustained neurologic recovery, the researchers wrote.

Steinberg and colleagues also reported improved functional sensorimotor connectivity via resting state fMRI as well as increased activity in the ipsilesional motor cortex and contralesional cerebellum confirmed via 18F FDG PET.

Adverse events such as headache, expressive aphasia and asymptomatic chronic subdural hygroma, which worsened from baseline, eventually spontaneously resolved, according to the researchers.

“Our study demonstrated that intracerebral transplantation of NR1 neural stem cells in 18 patients markedly improved neurologic function at 12 months,” Steinberg told Healio. “If confirmed in larger randomized studies, this therapy has the potential to revolutionize chronic stroke care.”

Sources/Disclosures

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Source:

Steinberg GK, et al. First-in-human phase 1/2a study of intracerebral transplantation using embryonic-derived neural stem cells (NR1) for chronic ischemic stroke:12 months outcomes. Presented at: International Stroke Conference; Feb. 5-7, 2025; Los Angeles.

Disclosures: Steinberg reports acting as a consultant for Recursion, Surgical Theater, Zeiss and previously for SanBio; and receiving royalties for or as patent beneficiary of Peter Lazic. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.