Archives

The Brain May Be Able to Repair Itself

The Brain May Be Able to Repair Itself

In a Ted Talk by Jocelyne Bloch, who is a neurosurgeon, she discusses how the brain can fix itself. She shares her frustration about how little self-repair abilities it has. This is why she chose to be a functional neurosurgeon.

The Brain May Be Able to Repair Itself

Functional Neurosurgeon

 

What’s a functional neurosurgeon? It’s a doctor who’s trying to improve a neurological function through different surgical strategies. One of these strategies is well known, deep brain stimulation. That’s when there’s an electrode implanted deep into your brain so that it will make a circuit of neurons to improve a neurological function.

It has helped people with Parkinson’s disease, severe tremors, and severe pain.

Though modulation does not equal repairs. That’s the dream and goal of functional neurosurgeons everywhere, and they may be close to it.

The Brain May Be Able to Repair Itself

 

15 years ago, Bloch, as chief resident, and her team decided to study traumatized brains. They did this by studying bits of swollen brains. They got these samples because when the brain is traumatized, it will swell, and sometimes neurosurgeons have to remove swollen parts of the brain to save a life.

So to study them, they wanted to grow cells from these pieces of tissue. It was difficult, but they discovered that the new cells look like stem cell cultures. Stems cells are immature cells that can turn into any type of cell in the body.

The adult brain has stem cells, but they’re rare and located deep inside. So, it’s hard to get access to them.

Another thing about normal stem cells is that they are very active. They divide a lot and fast. But the stem cells grown from the swollen pieces of brain divided slowly and could even die. But, they are still important because they may be able to help repair the brain in large groups.

They had to prove this though and did a series of experiments.

The Results of These Experiments

 

They found that using those new cells in damaged brains helped them recover around 50% of performance before the traumatic event. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start though Bloch knows that much more research needs to be done.

If you want to learn more, you should watch Bloch’s full video.

Do You Know About Cerebral Small Vessel Disease?

What Happens When a Potential Alzheimer's Treatment Fails?

Do you know what Cerebral Small Vessel Disease is? Would you believe that adults 60 to 90-years-old show signs of this disease 95% of the time? Consequences of this disease include cognitive decline, problems with walking or balance, strokes, and vascular dementia.

Do You Know About Cerebral Small Vessel Disease?

Do You Know About Cerebral Small Vessel Disease?

 

Other names for this disease are small vessel ischemic disease, white matter disease, periventricular white matter changes, perivascular chronic ischemic white matter disease of aging, and more.

Cerebral Small Vessel Disease (SVD) is an umbrella term that covers a bunch of different abnormalities with the small blood vessels in your brain. Just like the body’s bigger blood vessels, it can develop plaque, inflammation, and chronic damage. This can lead to the small blood vessels in your brain getting blocked.

Blocked blood vessels mean your brain won’t get oxygen or will leak, which can cause bleeding.

Your brain can change appearance on MRIs. The report will say that there has been “white matter changes.” Meaning the doctor can see signs of SVD.

Symptoms and Causes of SVD

 

Symptoms are often not very noticeable. They can include cognitive impairment, problems with walking and balance, strokes, depression, vascular dementia, other dementias, possible disability, and death.

It’s unknown what specifically causes SVD since it’s an umbrella term. There are certain risk factors like hypertension, high cholesterol, atrial fibrillation, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, diabetes, smoking, and age.

If you are concerned that you or a loved one is at risk, don’t be afraid to ask for an MRI.

There are studies to figure out how to treat or prevent SVD, but there is no clear conclusion yet.

Read more here.