Thursday, January 31, 2013

Neuroprotection vs. Neuronal Cascade of Death


If you were an agency funding research and a stroke researcher came to you with a proposal, Which of those words in the title would be more likely to at least get reviewed?  Never ever refer to neuroprotection, thats boring. Words can cause action, use ones that denote urgency. Both refer to the death of neurons that has been set in place by the original stroke. This will occur over the next week or so(at least until someone researches the real timeframe)  Some of the causes of those neuron deaths;
1.  Excitotoxicity
2.  Glutamate poisoning
3.  Capillaries that don't open due to pericytes
4.  Inflammatory action leaking through the blood brain barrier

Your doctor should know about all of these and if we had a Great stroke association pushing this type of research we might get results in 20-30 years.
This is where all the focus of stroke research should be, not tPA. The irrational focus on tPA is preventing something better from being found.
You stop the neuronal cascade of death and I bet we could reduce the 30 day deaths from stroke substantially. Why hasn't someone from the stroke medical world been pushing this? Are they all brain-dead?
ASA - Dr. Sacco, 
NSA - Mr. Baranski, 
WSO - Dr. Stephen Davis


Time is Brain, you know. F.A.S.T.  How many neurons will they let die because of inaction?

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