Researchers were able to effectively repair the brains of mice impaired by stroke-induced neurological injury with a new stem cell therapy, according to research backed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the journal Nature Medicine.
The new therapy involves surgically grafting stem cells into the damaged region of the brain and administering a compound called 3K3A-APC, which has been shown to facilitate the development of stem cells into neurons in petri dishes.
Researchers induced stroke-like brain damage in the mice by obstructing blood flow to certain regions of the brain. A week later, researchers then administered the stem cells in all the mice and either the 3K3A-APC or a placebo infusion. The mice treated with both stem cells and 3K3A-APC regained neurological function.
"When you give these mice 3K3A-APC, it works much better than stem cells alone," said Berislav Zlokovic, MD, PhD, a professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who led the research. "We showed that 3K3A-APC helps the cells convert into neurons and make structural and functional connections with the host's nervous system...no one in the stroke field has ever shown this, so I believe this is going to be the gold standard for future studies."
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