Reversing Stroke and Spinal Cord Damage

Reversing Stroke and Spinal Cord Damage

Scientists are on the brink of doing the unthinkable-replenishing the brains of people who have suffered strokes or head injuries to make them whole again. If that is not astonishing enough, they think they may be able to reverse paralysis. The door is at last open to lifting the terrifying sentence these disorders still decree-loss of physical function, cognitive skills, memory, and personality.

Until recently there was virtually nothing doctors could do for the 500,000 Americans who have strokes each year, the 500,000 to 750,000 who experience severe head injury, or the 10,000 people who are paralyzed after spinal cord damage (3). However, that is about to change. Researchers now think it may be possible to replace destroyed brain cells with new ones to give victims of stroke and brain injury a chance to relearn how to control their body, form new thinking processes, and regain emotions. After demolishing the long-standing myth that brain cells cannot regenerate or proliferate, scientists are developing ways to stimulate cells to do just that. Although stroke, head injury, and paralysis are three of the most devastating things that can happen to anyone, scientists have recently learned that the damage they cause is not preordained. It takes place over minutes, hours, and days, giving them a precious opportunity to develop treatments to halt much of the damage. Most of the new remedies are not yet available, but an explosion of research in the last five to ten years has convinced scientists that some of them will work (8).

Guided by fabulous results in preventing permanent damage from stroke and other injuries to the central nervous system in rats and other animals, researchers around the world have launched scores of trials in humans (12). However, many promising new therapies are sitting on the shelf because of a lack of money and other resources necessary to conduct large, lengthy, and expensive studies to conclusively show that a new drug or treatment really works in people. The requirement for safety and efficacy can be frustrating, especially for badly needed treatments that are very promising, but such caution is necessary.

One organization is trying to raise funds for a major study to test a pill for paralysis-4 amino pyridine (4 AP) -which has shown promising results in preliminary human trials (14). About half of the small number of people in the study, who had been paralyzed for four to fifteen years, regained some sensation and muscle function when they were given intravenous infusions of 4 AP.