Health Short: Research could lead to fuller recovery from stroke

It could but only when we get true stroke leadership. I've listed hundreds of research trials that need followup and many ideas about where further research is needed. But until we get leadership that knowledge is completely worthless. Our fucking failures of stroke associations are doing nothing to solve anything in stroke. In fact they are sucking up money and wasting it.
http://www.jacksonville.com/entertainmentlife/20180424/health-short-research-could-lead-to-fuller-recovery-from-stroke

Posted Apr 24, 2018 at 2:01 AM

Research could lead to fuller recovery from stroke

Despite years of effort, researchers have failed to find a pill you could take to harden your brain against injury caused by a stroke.

But new research offers the prospect of limiting a stroke’s long-term damage in a different way: with a drug that enhances the brain’s ability to rewire itself and promote recovery.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked or ruptured, depriving the brain of oxygen. Even after oxygen is restored, permanent damage usually remains.

In experiments, both mice and macaque monkeys that suffered strokes regained more movement and dexterity when their regimen included an experimental medication called edonerpic maleate. The drug, which has already run a gauntlet of safety trials as a possible medication for Alzheimer’s disease, appears to have enhanced the effectiveness of rehab by strengthening the connections between brain cells and nourishing the chemical soup in which those cells forge those new connections.

A report appears in the journal Science. The work was conducted by researchers at Yokohama City University School of Medicine and Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd., a Japanese pharmaceutical firm that owns rights to edonerpic maleate.

Its side effects included diarrhea, nausea, dizziness and headache, and it may have caused two “serious adverse events” in human trials. But patients debilitated by strokes “are desperate for new treatments, so many would accept those risks,” said UCLA neurologist Jason D. Hinman.

— Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

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