A study published earlier this month reveals researchers in Sweden have successfully restored mobility and sensation of touch in stroke-afflicted rats, according to a press release from Lund University.
Researchers at the Swedish university completed the study. It has been published in the peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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“Six months after the transplantation, we could see how the new cells had repaired the damage that a stroke had caused in the rats’ brains,” said professor Zaal Kokaia, who worked on the study with senior professor Olle Lindvall and researcher Sara Palma-Tortosa at the Division of Neurology.
Studies from others and the Lund team have demonstrated the possibility to transplant nerve cells derived from human stem cells or from reprogrammed cells into brains of stroke-afflicted rats. But it was not known if the transplanted cells can correctly form connections in the rat brain that would restore normal feeling and movement.
Kokaia explained the team has used methods such as electron microscopy, which illuminates biological and non-biological specimens, to reveal the cells have been correctly connected in the damaged nerve circuits.
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“We have been able to see that the (fibers) from the transplanted cells have grown to the other side of the brain, the side where we did not transplant any cells, and created connections. No previous study has shown this,” Kokaia said.
He and Lindvall have studied the brain for decades, but Kokaia was still surprised by the results.
“The study kindles hope that in the future it could be possible to replace dead nerve cells with new healthy nerve cells also in stroke patients, even though there is a long way to go before achieving that,” said Lindvall.
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After using human cells that have been reprogrammed in the laboratory to become nerve cells, the researchers transplanted the resulting cells into rats’ cerebral cortex. That’s the portion of the brain that is most often damaged by stroke. Now, researchers will conduct further studies.
Stroke is the No. 2 cause of death worldwide and a leading cause of disability, according to the American Stroke Association. The likelihood of stroke increases with age among men and women and although it more commonly occurs in people over 65, people under that age can have them too. Still, according to The Internet Stroke Center, almost three-quarters of strokes occur in people over 65 and the risk of stroke doubles each decade after 55.
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