Kinkini Gupta
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Resuming life as it was before the event is a dream or a goal. Hence, saying that stroke significantly impacts the quality of life is an understatement.
In a new discovery, researchers have found a solution for stroke. A medicine has been discovered that can combat the effects of a stroke and it is delivered to the brain by spraying them through the nose. Researchers conducted this experiment on rats and achieved positive results. This method can increase the impact of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), says experts. What is TMS? It is a non invasive way of stimulating the brain and this method is already in use. it has been used clinically or in clinical trials to treat neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease, depression, Alzheimer's disease, addiction and experts now say that it can also heal strokes.
For the longest time researchers new that getting large molecules of drug into the brain has been a very difficult challenge. There are highly impermeable walls of the blood vessels that hinder any kind of compound from travelling to the brain in large quantities. The medical term used for this issue is the blood brain barrier. However, studies based on previous research suggested that some drugs may be able to reach our brain through the nose. How does that work? The drug will travel up nerve cells whose function is to detect smell. These have long fibers that stretch from the nasal passages to the brain and that is how the drug can also reach the brain.
One area that researchers are still unsure about it's whether the required amount of molecules will be able to reach the brain and reap any medical benefit. In order to make sure that this process works, researchers conducted an experiment on rats. In rats that received a nasal spray of antibodies once daily for two weeks, their success at this task improved to about 60 per cent of their former ability by four weeks after their injury. In animals given a placebo treatment, the figure was about 30 per cent.
At the end of this experiment, they concluded that the rats that were treated in the specified process sprouted more new nerve fibers. To sum up, they were able to reach a level of antibodies that would be effective in repairing a large stroke lesion. They visibly found out that there is a natural regenerative power within the brain and if the brakes are taken off of it, it will work just fine.
As per reports, a researcher at Newcastle University, UK, Moein Moghimi said that if they find any way to transport the drugs into the brain, it would only reap positive benefits and the benefits might also have a wide range. However, the part that has not been proven yet is whether or not the antibodies reached the brain through the nerves or not. There is a possibility that they could have been absorbed from the nose into the bloodstream, from where small quantities could have reached the brain.