A NEW therapy that uses tiny pulses of electricity to stimulate the brain could help patients to recover after suffering a stroke.

British researchers have developed a treatment that uses magnets and electrical pulses to help repair parts of the brain.

The technique, known as trans-cranial electrical stimulation, promotes the growth of new neurons and can help to restore movement to patients who have been paralysed.

They hope that the approach could be used to help improve victims’ speech, which is often affected after a stroke.

Prof Jane Burridge, a restorative neuroscientist at Southampton University, said: “The studies so far show that the electrical stimulation increases the excitability of the cortex and people tend to perform better shortly after you have done this at doing sums, speaking or moving.

“We want to make sure that this is longer lasting so we are combining it with the use of rehabilitation robots, which allow the patients to move, increasing the chance of the new neurons connecting.”

Strokes are caused by a sudden loss of blood supply to the brain caused by a clot or bleeding, which starves the neurons of oxygen and causes them to die. This can cause permanent damage to the brain, leading to paralysis, memory loss and speech problems.

It is estimated that 150,000 people have a stroke in Britain each year and it accounts for about 53,000 deaths annually. It is the leading cause of disability in Europe, with about 450,000 people currently severely disabled as a result of a stroke in England.

Many patients do slowly regain some movement and feeling.

Prof Burridge and her colleagues at Southampton University and Imperial College London believe that transcranial electrical stimulation can speed up that process and increase recovery by promoting the rewiring process.

They use magnetic pulses to locate the part of the brain that has been damaged and fix electrodes on to the scalp of the patient. By passing a small electrical current, which cannot be felt by the patient, through their brain, neurons are stimulated to grow.

Prof Burridge believes that getting patients to replicate the movements they have lost with the aid of robotic arms can increase the rate at which these new neurons connect and restore function to the body.

A trial involving five patients delivered encouraging results and the researchers are about to start a clinical trial involving 40 patients.

“We can have the patients playing games with the help of the robotic arm and this means they are practising useful movements,” Prof Burridge said. “If you do that when the cortex is being stimulated then you are more likely to get a more lasting effect from the changes in the brain.”