Gabapentin may boost functional recovery after a stroke (Very cheap drug, given for “six weeks after a stroke restored fine motor functions”)

Medical Xpress / The Ohio State University / Brain / Journal of Clinical Investigation ^ | May 23, 2022 | Andrea Tedeschi et al / Wenjing Sun et al

[ConservativeMind]

The drug gabapentin, currently prescribed to control seizures and reduce nerve pain, may enhance recovery of movement after a stroke by helping neurons on the undamaged side of the brain take up the signaling work of lost cells.

Results showed that daily gabapentin treatment for six weeks after a stroke restored fine motor functions in the animals' upper extremities. Functional recovery also continued after treatment was stopped, the researchers found.

The team previously found that gabapentin blocks activity of a protein that, when expressed at elevated levels after an injury to the brain or spinal cord, hinders re-growth of axons, the long, slender extensions of nerve cell bodies that transmit messages.

The primary treatment focus after an ischemic stroke is re-establishing blood flow in the brain as quickly as possible, but this research suggests that gabapentin has no role at that acute stage: The recovery results were similar whether the treatment started one hour or one day after the stroke.

Instead, the drug's effects are evident in specific motor neurons whose axons carry signals from the central nervous system to the body that tell muscles to move.

After the stroke in study mice, neurons on the undamaged, or contralateral, side of the brain began sprouting axons that restored signals for upper extremity voluntary movement that had been silenced by neuron death after the stroke. This is an example of plasticity, the central nervous system's ability to fix damaged structures, connections and signals.

Compared to control mice that did not receive the drug, mice that received six weeks of daily gabapentin treatment regained fine motor function in their forelimbs. Two weeks after treatment was stopped, researchers observed, functional improvements persisted.

Gabapentin also appeared to have an effect in the stroke-affected brain on non-neuron cells that influence the timing of message transmission.

[Does so]

Hadn’t heard of PAD:
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/peripheral-artery-disease-of-the-legs

Statin drugs will give you painful leg cramps. When first sensing a cramp, IMMEDIATELY FORCE your leg straight...

[j.argese]

I’m a man. Yes, I am.

[j.argese]

Yeah. I had problems with Gabapentin NOT working. Equivalent does not mean equal.