New drug could help brain recover after a stroke
Despite years of effort, researchers have so far failed to find a pill you could take or a food you could eat to harden your brain against the injury that could be 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 in the weeks and months after injury.
In experiments, both mice and macaque monkeys that suffered strokes regained more movement and dexterity when their rehabilitative 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 on the experiments appeared in Friday’s edition of the journal Science. The work was conducted by researchers at Yokohama City University School of Medicine and employees of Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd., a Japanese pharmaceutical firm that owns intellectual property rights to edonerpic maleate. Toyama provided funding for Yokohama City University to study the drug in macaque monkeys.
The findings from the mice shed important light on how edonerpic maleate may work in an injured brain.
But many experimental drugs have been effective in improving mobility in mice after a stroke, yet failed to work as well in primates. The fact that this one also improved movement in stroke-affected monkeys is evidence that it “may be a strong candidate” to help humans recover from a stroke, and possibly traumatic brain injury as well, the researchers said.
Scientists have spent years looking for neuroprotective agents that can buffer the brain against the initial whack of a stroke, but they’ve had little success. That’s why a therapy that turbocharges this process of building back neuroplasticity after a stroke could be uniquely welcome.
UCLA neurologist Jason Hinman, who did not work on the new research, welcomed the results. He said edonerpic maleate is one of many therapies being tested to augment the effects of post-stroke rehabilitative therapy.