Saturday, June 14, 2014

Asynchronous therapy restores motor control by rewiring of the rat corticospinal tract after stroke

You are going to have to demand your doctor contact the researcher and find out what growth-promoting immunotherapy was used and whether there is any downside to using it in humans. But you doctor won't even do that simple thing, they are paid regardless of how well you recover. Damned easy to do, look at that, an author email address.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6189/1250.abstract
  1. M. E. Schwab1,2,*
+ Author Affiliations
  1. 1Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  2. 2Brain Research Institute, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  3. 3Computer Vision Group, Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing and Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
  4. 4Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  5. 5National Institute for Physiological Sciences, National Institute of Natural Sciences Myodaiji, Okazaki, Japan.
  1. *Corresponding author. E-mail: schwab@hifo.uzh.ch (M.E.S.); wahl@hifo.uzh.ch (A.S.W.)
The brain exhibits limited capacity for spontaneous restoration of lost motor functions after stroke. Rehabilitation is the prevailing clinical approach to augment functional recovery, but the scientific basis is poorly understood. Here, we show nearly full recovery of skilled forelimb functions in rats with large strokes when a growth-promoting immunotherapy against a neurite growth–inhibitory protein was applied to boost the sprouting of new fibers, before stabilizing the newly formed circuits by intensive training. In contrast, early high-intensity training during the growth phase destroyed the effect and led to aberrant fiber patterns. Pharmacogenetic experiments identified a subset of corticospinal fibers originating in the intact half of the forebrain, side-switching in the spinal cord to newly innervate the impaired limb and restore skilled motor function.

From another writeup on it.
The “medication” is made up of antibodies against the so-called Nogo protein that prevents nerve growth and was discovered by Schwab and his colleagues nearly 20 years ago.

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