Article from paper

[MaryF]

telegraph.co.uk/health/heal...

Mary F

[paddyandlin]

Hi Mary this is a great bit of information be intresting to see how it progresses i have just copied the article as some people cannot click on links again good find Mary

Paddy

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

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

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

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

Professor Jane Burridge, a restorative neuroscientist at Southampton University, said: "The electrical stimulation promotes new growth of neurons.

"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 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.

An estimated 150,000 people have a stroke in the UK each year and it accounts for around 53,000 deaths annually.

It is also the leading cause of disability in Europe, with roughly 450,000 people currently severely disabled asa result of a strokes in England alone.

Many stroke patients do slowly regain some movement and feeling over time as the brain "rewires" itself.

Professor Burridge and her colleagues at Southampton University and Imperial College London believe that using trans-cranial electric stimulation can help speed up that process and increase patient's recovery by promoting the rewiring process.

Using magnetic pulses they can locate the exact part of the brain that has been damaged and fix electrodes on the scalp of the patient. By passing a small electrical current, which cannot be felt by the patient, through their brain, it stimulates neurons to grow.

Professor 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 small trial involving five patients has 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 practicing useful movements," said Professor Burridge.

"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."

[MaryF Administrator in reply to paddyandlin]

Great idea, and thanks Paddy. Mary F x

[Storky]

Stimulation of all kinds is fast becoming the new field of research with great results. Deep brain stimulation is just one field that is helping many.

I was one of just 6 patients in the UK and now in the world (as the USA trial patients have had to have theirs removed when the trial finished) who had a Bion occipital nerve stimulator implanted in 2006 for my Hemicrania Continua which was at that time intractable. It changed my life.

Unfortunately the life spam was thought only to be 5-10 years and its already been in five and a half. The company who made the Bion not only has no plans to make any more or improve on the model but sold the technology with a stipulation that it not be used on headaches! Having been dx with APS I doubt very much they would repeat this on me now anyway so I have no idea whats going to happen when this dies. However until then Im living proof that stimulation works and I know of other kinds that are being used for other condition with good results too.

[MaryF Administrator in reply to Storky]

Goody MF x I hope you get interviewed about this with bells on!