Use the labels in the right column to find what you want. Or you can go thru them one by one, there are only 34,148 posts. Searching is done in the search box in upper left corner. I blog on anything to do with stroke. DO NOT DO ANYTHING SUGGESTED HERE AS I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED, YOUR DOCTOR IS, LISTEN TO THEM. BUT I BET THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET YOU 100% RECOVERED. I DON'T EITHER BUT HAVE PLENTY OF QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR TO ANSWER.
Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain!trillions and trillions of neuronsthatDIEeach day because there areNOeffective 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.
Don't make the leap that this can be readily transferred to the brain.
Be careful out there. I have seen nothing to prove stem cell therapy for brains work. Gordie Howe anecdotes prove nothing.
Imagine losing control of your car and waking up in the hospital
paralyzed from the neck down. This is the story of Kristopher Boesen,
who experienced a life-changing moment where his car spiraled out of
control on a slippy road surface, slamming into a tree and lamp post.
Doctors warned Kris’s parents that he might never be able to function
from the neck down again.
The Procedure
Kris was offered the opportunity to go through a potentially life-changing procedure involving stem cells, which ‘have the capability to repair injured nervous tissue through replacement of damaged cells‘ (1). The experimental procedure did not guarantee any restoration to Kris’s paralysis, but to him, the risk was worth taking.
The
process began in April where Dr. Liu injected 10 million AST-OPC1 cells
directly into Kris’ cervical spinal cord. (AST-OPC1 cells come from
donated eggs that are fertilized in vitro (ie. in a petri dish). For
more information on where stem cells come from, check out this resource.) Dr. Liu explains that; “Typically,
spinal cord injury patients undergo surgery that stabilizes the spine
but does very little to restore motor or sensory function. With this
study, we are testing procedure that may improve neurological function,
which could mean the difference between being permanently paralyzed and
being able to use one’s arms and hands. Restoring that level of function
could significantly improve the daily lives of patients with severe
spinal injuries.” (2)
The Results
After
a mere 3 weeks of therapy, Kris started showing signs of improvement,
and within 2 months he could answer the phone, write his name and
operate a wheelchair. He had regained significant improvement in his
motor functions; which are the transmissions of messages from the brain
to muscle groups to create movement (3).
Kris
recovered two spinal chord levels which made a huge difference in his
movement abilities. It was the difference between minimal movement or
none at all and being able to function on his own. Kris regained the
incredibly important aspect of independence.
After seeing the results of stem cell therapy, Kris was bowled over, saying; “All
I’ve wanted from the beginning was a fighting chance…But if there’s an
opportunity for me to walk again, then heck yeah! I want to do anything
possible to do that.”
The Future
Although
doctors are not able to make any promises that Kris’s condition will
further improve, they can keep experimenting with stem cell research to
try and improve the likelihood of it working fully on paralysis.
So
far, they have made huge steps forward and will hopefully continue to
do so in their quest to solve paralysis, by teaming up with ‘associate faculty based in departments across KSOM and the University to study stem cell-driven new medicine‘, Dr. Liu and his team at USC are determined to keep researching stem cells and much more!
Stem cell research is ongoing and can be used in many ways other than paralysis; from Parkinson’s and diabetes to cancer (4). To find the latest news regarding stem cell research check this website out.
They don't even know if the stem cells survived. Any recovery can't be assigned to stem cells if you don't even know that piece of information. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-218-gordie-howe-s-stem-cell-miracle-dennis-rodman-in-north-korea-and-more-1.2947718/is-gordie-howe-s-stem-cell-recovery-the-miracle-it-s-cracked-up-to-be-1.2947736
Canadian experts in stem cell research are warning that Gordie Howe's
heralded recovery from multiple strokes after an experimental stem cell
treatment is a rarity and that there is the possibility of
complications from the treatment. The son of Canadian hockey legend
Gordie Howe called his father's recent recovery, "nothing short of a
miracle" at an event in Calgary this week. Marty Howe said his father is
walking, beginning to speak and is able to play with his grandchildren
after he took part in a clinical trial in Mexico that saw stem cells
injected into his spinal canal and his bloodstream.
"You usually hear about the rare cases and they always seem to be
immediately after the transplant," Dr. Mick Bhatia, told CBC Radio's
Brent Bambury. "Follow up, however, and subsequent indication that the
positive effects have been sustained are extremely rare. I personally am
unaware of anyone that's gone back and reported a sustained effect,"
said Bhatia who is director and senior scientist at McMaster
University's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.
Howe's family approved his participation in the clinical trial in
Tijuana, Mexico following discussions with medical representatives of
Stemedica, the U.S. company providing the stem cells for the trial.
Another company, Novastem, is conducting the trial at their Clinica
Santa Clarita facility.
Dave McGuigan, vice president of marketing and business development
for Stemedica and Howe family friend, contacted the family about the
possibility of taking part in the trial after he heard of Howe's strokes
last year.
Stemedica has been involved in clinical trials in the United States,
but the treatment tested on Gordie Howe is not currently approved by
Health Canada or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to
McGuigan, the main difference between the U.S. and Mexican trials is
that in the U.S. people are only eligible for the experimental therapy
six months after having a stroke. In Mexico, Stemedica has government
approval to proceed with clinical trials within two weeks of a patient
having a stroke.
"When the Howe family evaluated the protocol for both clinical
trials, they didn't believe that Gordie could live as long as six
months, so they decided to enrol him in the government-sanctioned
clinical trial in Mexico," says McGuigan.
But Bhatia says Howe's case presents more questions than answers.
"What is the origin of those cells? Why are they classifying them as
stem cells? Were there multiple injections? Were the patients given some
sort of drug before they were injected, or after, or during? A lot of
questions," says Bhatia. "But that's sort of par for the course for
these stem cell transplants that are outside of North America or some of
the centres in Europe."
Dr. Lev Verkh, chief regulatory and clinical officer for Stemedica
told the Canadian Press that his company's products - bone
marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells from young healthy donors and
neural stem cells derived from donated brain tissue - don't trigger the
immune system, so patients don't need medications, including
immunosuppressant drugs.
Bhatia disputes that claim. "Scientifically, I'd like to know what
the evidence is. All cells in people's bodies can identify something
that is their own versus something that's foreign," says Bhatia. "That's
how the immune system combats bacteria or viruses as well. So if these
cells that are being put in are not being detected by the patient's
immune system, that's very interesting and I think some evidence behind
that, especially something so paradigm-shifting, is probably required."
The other explanation, says Bhatia, is that the injected cells don't
trigger an immune response because they die shortly after entering the
body.
He also warns that stem cell injection can be far from innocuous.
Beyond the risk of major financial cost of experimental treatments, the
biggest risk comes from the fact that stem cells are programmed to
regenerate and grow.
"You can imagine if these cells land in the wrong place after
injection," says Bhatia. "These cells can go anywhere. And if they're in
the incorrect place, they may grow uncontrollably, and that's something
you would call a tumour."
Not only that, says Bhatia, but they might also grow in places that
affect the healthy tissue in unpredictable ways. "It's not like a drug,
where a chemical may have an adverse effect and you can simply stop
taking the drug. When you inject a cell, that cell, if it goes rogue in
the body, will continue and there's no way of controlling it."
McGuigan, however, says that what Stemedica does is different from
unregulated treatments and clinical trials going on around the world in
places like China, Poland and Mexico. "We know from our U.S. trial that
we've seen incremental improvement in functional, physical and cognitive
skills," he says.
"We know that our cells have been deemed safe by an independent data
monitoring board. So based on that and other evidence we've seen from
other clinical trials we feel that the stem cells have played some role
in the recovery process," says McGuigan. In an emailed statement,
McGuigan added that Stemedica has carried out two clinical trials and
there have been no adverse patient reactions.
It may be inevitable that Gordie Howe's high profile and his recovery
from near-death will encourage others to pursue similar stem cell
treatments. "That's certainly the concern. I think anyone as iconic as
Mr. Howe and other celebrities that participate in these types of things
definitely send a message to everyone," says Bhatia.
"I would caution anyone trying to think about these types of
transplants to ask common sense questions like you would from your
doctor or any hospital in North America. If the comfort level isn't
there, I would really worry about the risk, both in loss of money and
potential danger of being transplanted with cells that are uncontrolled,
you don't know what they are, what that can do in the long run."
•We reviewed the effects of stem cell-based therapies on ischemic stroke.
•We assessed all the trials using the error matrix approach.
•A dose-response meta-analysis was performed in our research.
Abstract
Stroke
is a major cause of death and long-term disability worldwide.
Cell-based therapies improve neural functional recovery in pre-clinical
studies, but clinical results require evaluation. We aimed to assess the
effects of mesenchymal stem cells on ischemic stroke treatment.
We
searched the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases until July 2015 and
selected the controlled trials using mesenchymal stem cells for ischemic
stroke treatment compared with cell-free treatment. We assessed the
results by meta-analysis using the error matrix approach, and we
assessed the association of mesenchymal stem cell counts with treatment
effect by dose-response meta-analysis.
Seven trials were included.
Manhattan plots revealed no obvious advantage of the application of
stem cells to treat ischemic stroke. For the comprehensive evaluation
index, stem cell treatment did not significantly reduce the mortality of
ischemic stroke patients (relative risk (RR) 0.59, 95% confidence
interval (CI) 0.29–1.19; ln(RR) 0.54, 95% CI −0.18 to 1.25, p = 0.141).
The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale was also not
significantly improved by stem cell treatment (standardized mean
difference (SMD) 0.94, 95% CI −0.13 to 2.01, p = 0.072). The European
Stroke Scale was significantly improved using the stem cell treatment
(SMD 1.15, 95% CI 0.37–1.92). The dose-response meta-analysis did not
reveal a significant linear regression relationship between the number
of stem cells and therapeutic effect, except regarding the National
Institutes of Health Stroke Scale index.
In conclusion, our
assessments indicated no significant difference between stem cell and
cell-free treatments. Further research is needed to discover more
effective stem cell-based therapies for ischemic stroke treatment.
If your stem cell provider isn't tracking the cells they inject then they have no f*cking idea if they survived and are doing any good at all. This is why I don't trust any statements about Gordie Howe. They have absolutely no idea if the stem cells even lived. Any clinical research that doesn't include tracking should never even get funded. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-15063-5_12
Traumatic brain injury and stroke
remain important causes of chronic neurologic morbidity due to the lack
of vasculature in injured brain. Promising data from preclinical and
clinical studies suggest that transplantation of exogenous hematopoietic
stem cells (HSCs) and neural progenitor cells (NPCs) has therapeutic
potential for boosting brain repair. This neuroregeneration could be
achieved by HSCs/NPCs migration, differentiation, enhanced endogenous
angiogenesis and neurogenesis, and the secretion of trophic factors by
these cells in injured tissue and stroke. The neuroregeneration is
achieved by significant decrease in graft-versus-host disease and
improved functional behavior of damaged brain. Importantly, these stem
cells are derived from peripheral blood, umbilical cord blood (UCB),
bone marrow (BM), and embryonic sources. A subpopulation of CD34+
human HSCs identified by the cell-surface molecule AC133 (CD133) has
been shown to be more specific for endothelial differentiation and
vascular repair. Similarly, NPCs have shown to induced angiogenesis and
neurogenesis in stroke. Several studies have been exploited in vivo
imaging modalities, importantly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to
monitor the migration and engraftment efficacy of administered cells for
cell-based therapies. This chapter covers the characterization of
contrast agents, cell-labeling methods for MRI, use of endothelial
progenitor cells (EPCs) and NPCs in vascular integrity and
neuroregeneration, and molecular mechanisms of their homing to the
injured or stroke site, such as their interaction with brain endothelium
as depicted by MRI.
The scientists were able to determine not only whether the stem cells
transplanted into living animals survived but whether they matured into
nerve cells, integrated into targeted brain circuits and, most
important, were firing on cue and igniting activity in downstream nerve
circuits.
The new monitoring technique could in principle be used to determine the
success of other kinds of stem cell transplantations. It promises in
the near term to improve researchers’ ability to optimize stem cell
therapies in animal experiments and, in the intermediate term, to speed
progress in human trials of stem cell replacement therapy, a promising
but problem-plagued medical intervention.
Many disorders of the central nervous system, such as Parkinson’s
disease, are characterized by defective nerve cells in specific brain
regions. This makes disorders such as Parkinson’s excellent candidates
for stem cell therapies, in which the defective nerve cells are
replaced. But the experiments in which such procedures have been
attempted have met with mixed results, and those conducting the
experiments are hard put to explain them. There’s been no good way to
evaluate what the transplanted stems cells are doing. So optimizing the
regimens becomes a matter of guesswork and luck.
“That’s the key missing step in stem cell therapy design: Once you’ve
transplanted the cells, you can’t tell exactly what they’re doing
afterwards,” said Jin Hyung Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor of
neurology, of neurosurgery and of bioengineering. In the case of
brain-oriented therapies, you have to look for behavioral changes, she
said. “And even when you see them, you still don’t know whether the
newly transplanted cells integrated into the right brain circuits and
are now functioning correctly there.”
Now there’s a way to tell.
Transplanted stem cells did what they were supposed to
Lee is the senior author of a paper, appearing online April 30 in NeuroImage,
detailing a series of experiments in which she and her colleagues
combined functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, with a
relatively new but increasingly widespread technology known as
optogenetics, which employs laser light to stimulate specific cells that
have been rendered sensitive to particular frequencies of light. The
combination let the scientists selectively stimulate only nerve cells
derived from newly transplanted neural stem cells, while simultaneously
assessing resulting nerve-cell activity at the site of the transplant
and elsewhere in the brain.
Jin
Hyung Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurology, of neurosurgery and
of bioengineering at Stanford, is lead author on the paper. (Source:
Stanford University)The study showed that the
transplanted neural stem cells had indeed matured into nerve cells that
not only integrated into the brain’s circuitry at the transplantation
site but could be induced to fire electrical signals on command, and
that this signaling triggered activity in other areas of the brain. Lead
authorship of the study is shared by former graduate student Blake
Byers, Ph.D., now a general partner with Google Ventures; postdoctoral
scholar Hyun Joo Lee, Ph.D.; and Ph.D. students Jia Liu and Andrew
Weitz.
The researchers first created induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS
cells, from the skin cells of a patient with Parkinson’s disease. Like
embryonic stem cells, iPS cells have the capacity to differentiate into
every cell type in the human body. Next, they inserted a gene coding for
a photosensitive protein into these iPS cells. The protein situates
itself on the cell’s surface and, in response to blue laser light,
induces electrical activity in the cell.
Then, in a dish, the researchers differentiated the genetically altered
iPS cells into neural stem cells. Unlike iPS cells, which can
differentiate into every cell type in the body, neural stem cells can
mature only into nerve cells or a few other cell types that populate the
brain.
The scientists transplanted these genetically altered human cells into
the brains of rats that were normal except for the fact that their
immune systems were compromised, reducing the chances of an immune
attack on the foreign cells.
The particular region of the brain into which the cells were injected is
called the striatum. In humans, deterioration of particular nerve cells
in this area is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, a progressive
neurodegenerative disorder profoundly affecting movement and,
frequently, mental function. Along with the new cells, the investigators
implanted into each rat’s brain a small cannula containing the end of a
thin optical fiber whose far end could be connected to a laser light
source.
From about three months to almost a full year after the procedure, Lee
and her associates conducted experiments in which, using fMRI, they
observed the rats’ brains before, during and after stimulating the
implanted cells with pulses of blue laser light or, as a control, yellow
laser light. Blue-light stimulation triggered activity not only within
the striatum but at several other areas in the brain. Yellow light had
no effect — proof that electrical activity in these cells had been
triggered by stimulating the genetically inserted protein, not merely by
shining light on them.
Recording electrical activity
To explore activity in those areas, the researchers turned to a
different observation method: electrophysiology. While fMRI has the
advantage of imaging large portions of the brain simultaneously, it
actually measures not electrical activity but blood flow in the small
vessels permeating the entire brain. Active nerve cells require more
nutrients, and increased blood flow in a specific location in the brain
is considered an excellent proxy of electrical activity at that
location.
But, having now identified specific brain areas where fMRI scans
indicated increased nerve-cell activity, Lee and her associates
proceeded to directly record electrical activity in these areas by
inserting electrodes there and watching what happened when they pulsed
blue light into the striatum, where the neural stem cells had been
transplanted. They saw, first, that the transplanted nerve cells had
clearly integrated into striatal circuitry and were firing there when
stimulated with blue light; and, second, that this triggered electrical
follow-on activity in remote regions of the brain.
Anatomical inspections of the rats’ brains confirmed that the new cells
had integrated into the striatum and, in many cases, had grown long
projections to the remote areas where follow-on activity had been
observed.
“I’m hopeful that this monitoring approach could work for all kinds of
stem cell-based therapies,” Lee said. “If we can watch the new cells’
behaviors for weeks and months after we’ve transplanted them, we can
learn — much more quickly and in a guided way rather than a
trial-and-error fashion — what kind of cells to put in, exactly where to
put them, and how.”
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Okawa
Foundation, a National Science Foundation Early Faculty Development
Program award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and the California
Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
There is still so much unknown about stem cells that current research seems more like a shot in the dark that any logical way to proceed. This is one of the many reasons that the miracle of stem cells contributing instantly to Godie Howes' recovery is impossible to believe. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1214.4.full?utm_campaign=email-sci-ec&utm_src=email
The use of stem cells in regenerative medicine holds enormous
therapeutic potential. However, scientists still need to fully
understand the molecular signals that control the
ability of stem cells to self-renew and differentiate. To identify genes
that many regulate this, Fortier et al.
screened a library of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) containing
chromosomal deletions. They found that the loss of a single
copy of several genes encoding protein subunits of
the ribosome, a large protein complex that translates mRNA into
proteins,
resulted in impaired ESC differentiation but did
not affect self-renewal.
They are misunderstanding cause and correlation. In the first 6 months there is massive amounts of spontaneous recovery. There is no way to assign recovery to stem cells unless they tagged the cells with some kind of marker and then looked for those marked neurons in the brain. http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2015/01/fred_wings_legend_gordie_howe.html
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