Stroke, here's how the brain's healthy hemisphere influences recovery: the revolutionary research

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Stroke, here's how the brain's healthy hemisphere influences recovery: the revolutionary research

Rome, March 6. (Adnkronos Health) - After a stroke, attention focuses on the portion of the brain directly affected by the lesion, where neurons have been damaged. However, the functioning of the nervous system does not depend on isolated individual areas, but on networks of connections distributed between the two cerebral hemispheres. When one of the two is damaged, the other can also modify its activity, contributing decisively to recovery or hindering it. A study conducted by the Neuropharmacology Laboratory of Irccs Neuromed in Pozzilli (Isernia), in collaboration with Lund University in Sweden (Tadeusz Wieloch) and Washington University, St. Louis, USA (Adam Bouer), published in 'Stroke', focuses on this balance between the two cerebral hemispheres.

　The research - Neuromed informs - has identified a crucial node for the recovery of motor function precisely in the contralateral hemisphere, i.e., the one opposite to the lesion. In other words, after a stroke, the configuration of brain networks changes profoundly: the unaffected hemisphere can become excessively active, leading to a functional imbalance that hinders recovery.

　To identify possible pharmacological strategies capable of restoring the balance between the two hemispheres - a note explains - researchers focused on type 5 metabotropic glutamate receptors, or mGlu5, proteins that regulate communication between neurons and synaptic plasticity processes, i.e., the brain's ability to modify its connections. To precisely understand how mGlu5 receptors act in promoting or hindering post-stroke recovery, scientists used light-sensitive molecules, capable of being selectively activated or deactivated in specific brain regions. This approach, called photopharmacology, allows modulating the drug's effect in very circumscribed areas without genetically intervening on neurons.

　"Our research - explains Federica Mastroiacovo, from Neuromed's Neuropharmacology Laboratory, the study's first author - has shown that motor recovery after a stroke can be decisively influenced by the cerebral hemisphere not affected by the lesion. By selectively blocking mGlu5 receptors in the homotopic cerebral area contralateral to the lesion, we observed a significant improvement in function, while the same intervention in the lesioned area did not produce comparable effects." For the researchers, this is therefore an intervention aimed at functional recovery, regardless of the extent of ischemic damage and any previous vascular therapeutic strategies.

　"This study - comments Ferdinando Nicoletti, full professor of Pharmacology at Sapienza University of Rome and head of Neuromed's Neuropharmacology Laboratory - precisely identifies the cerebral site necessary for the blockade of mGlu5 receptors to promote recovery. The results indicate that the contralateral hemisphere is not merely a spectator of the damage, but an active participant in network reorganization processes. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for developing increasingly targeted interventions in the post-ischemic phase of stroke".

　The research - the note specifies - was conducted in animal models of stroke and represents an advancement in understanding the neurobiological mechanisms that regulate brain plasticity after ischemic damage. Further studies will be needed to verify if and to what extent these results can be translated into therapeutic applications in humans.