Brain cell discovery offers new hope

The Sundat Times (Australia) ^ | January 17, 2005

[nickcarraway]

SCIENTISTS have successfully grown human brain cells in the laboratory for the first time and used them to repair the damaged brains of head-injury victims.

The breakthrough brings new hope in the search for therapies not only for accident victims but also for those suffering the effects of strokes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other degenerative conditions.

The scientists emphasise the research is experimental, but it suggests there may one day be hope for spinal injury victims such as the late Christopher Reeve, the Superman star paralysed in a riding accident who died last year.

In the initial experiments, a man given the cultured brain cells apparently regained the ability to walk.

The research was carried out in China by Professor Zhu Jianhong, of Fudan University Hospital, who will announce the results of his work in London later this month.

"This is a world-first," said Professor Stephen Minger, director of the stem cell biology laboratory at the Wolfson Centre for age-related diseases at King's College London.

"If the initial results prove accurate, this has huge implications for new treatments."

Scientists have long recognised that if they can find a way to grow neurones, the cells that comprise the functional parts of the brain and spine, they will be able to treat a wide range of currently incurable conditions. That is because in adult humans such cells have almost no ability to divide, grow and replace themselves as they die off through disease, injury or old age.

After the age of 25, a typical adult loses millions of neurones a week, a process that can be accelerated in later years by diseases such as Alzheimer's. Scientists have always wondered if they could find a way to kick-start neurones so that they regain the ability to divide, grow and repair themselves.

The discovery of stem cells in the 1990s prompted new hope. Stem cells are primitive cells that have the potential to divide and grow into almost any kind of specialised cell. In adults there are different stem cells for most types of tissue, including the brain.

But all previous attempts to use these to grow brain cells have failed. This is partly because of the difficulty of obtaining fresh brain cells to work on, meaning many groups have had to use samples from dead bodies.

Professor Zhu is understood to have obtained his brain samples from the accident and emergency department of the hospital where he works.

One day he treated a patient who had been stabbed in the eye with a chopstick. When the stick was removed it was covered in brain material, which he was able to grow in a culture medium.

[TXnMA]

One might say the Chinese have an advantage in live-human experiments -- no FDA to slow them down.

[Odyssey-x]

Now what about using braincells to augment intelligence.. That would by far be the most interesting use...

[GeekDejure]

Now what about using braincells to augment intelligence..
That would by far be the most interesting use...

======

Yeah... then the Chinese could learn not to pee in their pants !!! ;-))

[fella]

Reeves could have used a bunch of these before he froze in position as his horse threw him, he just might have had enough sense to move to protect himself as he fell.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Someone call me when they can use these brain cells to cure autism.

[Salamander]

In 1981, a horse I was leading spooked and slammed into me, throwing me sideways onto the very unforgiving blacktop.
I spent 10 days in a coma and the doctors told my parents that *if* I ever woke up, I'd be a vegetable.
The entire frontal lobe of my brain was effectively destroyed by the concussion and subsequent "whiplash" effect of my brain slamming forwards into the abrasive bony ridges inside the front of my skull.
I had to get yearly MRIs to keep an eye on the "empty space" in the front of my head where the bruised and damaged brain tissue "died". [the "empty space" was left when the tissue was absorbed as my brain healed and it later filled with spinal fluid]
Obviously, I awoke and not only was I not a "vegetable", I suddenly found myself able to learn and retain information with a previously unheard of ease.
I developed interests in archaeology, anthropology and at one point, taught myself to read Greek so that I could read the NT in its closest-to-original language.
Topics such as quantum theorum and "holographic universes" suddenly appealed to me.
I even got "better" at my artwork.
Writers foreign to me such as Shakespeare and Robert Burns, William Blake and WB Yeats became irresistable.
I developed a passion for comparative religion/mythologies.
And still, the MRIs were taken year after year and the "hole" remained.
There came a time when I stopped going for the MRIs.
Then, on a whim, I went for another last year.
The MRI was "normal" and the "hole" is gone.
Since the brain "cannot repair itself", I'd love to know what happened in there.

The only "side effect" left is my inability to smell.
Paradoxically, I have a better sense of taste than anyone else.
Once I had hubby check some chicken salad for me and he said it smelled/tasted "fine" so I ate it.
It made me very sick and I should have gone with *my* opinion of it.
Doctors tell me that's impossible because if you can't smell, you can't taste.
I know 2 other people who can't smell because of head injuries and neither of them can taste anything.

There's a mystery for you.

[BrianLocke]

You are one of the few lucky ones. I was hit by a car when I was three and suffered a severe head injury. I lost all of my social skills I had developed up till then as well as suffering a great decrease in motor skills especially on my left side (I landed on the right side of my head). It wasn't until years later when they were checking me for a learning disability due to my poor handwriting and lack of social skills.

After a CT scan they determined that I had an "Enlarged Cisterna Magna". Basically that means my brain had atrophied due to dead brain matter on both sides, what you described in your MRI's. I have struggled with the consequences of that ever since.

The biggest problem I have always had is the lack of the ability to understand social interactions. I have lost jobs because I couldn't play the office politics that other people seemed to understand. I just wanted to do my job. Anytime I am in a social situation I am at a loss. It has made my life a bitterly lonely one.

I don't doubt that in some cases such as yours the brain can regenerate, I just wish I had been one such case. I doubt even if they do prove their techniques that it would do much good for me.

[Salamander]

May God bless you, Brian Locke.
I had a period of adjustment while pathways were finding alternate routes and work-arounds, for want of a better description. It was not all "instantaneous". The hardest struggles involved how people reacted to the "new" ways I did things and expressed myself.
I do understand the "social skills" part because I lost probably 90% of my "tactful inhibitions" and would simply say exactly what I was thinking at any given moment.
I couldn't work anywhere with other people.
On the bright side, the people with whom I do have social interaction value the fact that I am one of the few who won't flatter them with phony praise or give them a pillowy answer when they really need to hear the truth.

I had 21 years of previous "self" to draw upon.
It would seem to me that your youth worked against you.
You had no springboard of prior "memories" of how you "should be" to work with.

I do, however, have a miserable time with short-term memory.
I must lean upon learning by repetition more so than before.

[and I can't count the times that I utterly, -completely- "forgot" that I was cooking something]...;)

Perhaps it's all a matter of perspective.
I'd personally value your inability to "play politics".
I respect only bluntness and truth.

[e p1uribus unum]

Absolutely fascinating.

My head injury was in 1996.
Also right frontal lobe but not as bad as yours. Plus temporal lobe.

Also social problems and slow learning.

Also new areas of interest...far more creative.

Also continuing to improve years after.

There are too many assumptions in brain research.

[Salamander]

I had temporal lobe damage too and a wicked crack that ran from above my right ear to the back of my head.
The crack went from a hairline fracture to a 1/2" gap in the back.
They never did anything for it except tell me not to jump off of things....:))

I think it can "re-route" if necessary.

[and I can tell you a week ahead if "weather" is coming...ouch!]

[djf]

Consider yourself very fortunate. You are the exception, not the rule.

[e p1uribus unum]

My previous answer to Salamander actually belongs here. Organizational skills still elude me somewhat.

I agree with Salamander that having a memory of how things "should" be for you helps in rehab. The other two people with TBI that I know blame themselves for "personality" problems that obviously stem from the injuries.

My way of dealing with the social skills problem has been to pause and put into place a "what would be the answer people want" question and a "say something positive" warning, then give that answer. This also gets me into trouble sometimes, but the result is a bit closer to the pre-TBI personality I recall. By the time the exchange has happened I have had time to reference my own honesty filter and often, but not always, modify my social exchange in the direction of diplomatic honesty.

This didn't work while my short term memory loss was at its worst.

[e p1uribus unum]

Just curious. Did you get seizures?

I started temporal lobe myoclonic seizures 9 months after the injury and they are only just now fading away a bit.

[e p1uribus unum]

I agree Salamander was fortunate in the degree of recovery. I suspect a _lot_ of rehab work and determination.

It sounds as if you also have a story. Or is it professional knowledge?

[djf]

Nothing in particular, just a general interest in the hard sciences, biology and psych.

As I get older, I'm trying to fight the effects. One thing I have discovered: drink water. As much as you can tolerate.

I often wonder if they found the Fountain of Youth if it would ever be released. I doubt it.

[Salamander]

Briefly, I had what they call "absence seizures".
I'd just stop in my tracks and stand there for a while, looking at nothing, sometimes moving my hands in a purposeless manner and it occasionally looked as though I were speaking without making any sounds. [or so I'm told]
I only ever felt one actually coming on.
I was in the shower with a head full of shampoo and felt "odd".
I jumped out of the shower, phoned my [ex]husband at work and when he got home minutes later he found me naked on the kitchen floor with the dog licking the shampoo off my hair....:))

[oh sure....it's funny *now*]

I've been tested for post-traumatic epilepsy several times so I have no idea what they really were.
Possibly just temporary "shorts" in my wiring.

[Salamander]

Actually, I thank God for it.

[Salamander]

"I suspect a _lot_ of rehab work and determination."

Actually, I had absolutely no professional help whatsoever.
My so-called neurologist washed his hands of me less than a week later when I emphatically insisted I could taste things even though I could not smell.
He declared that impossible and that was the last time I ever saw him.

My parents were "angry" and critical of my subsequent struggles and shortcomings and offered no support, either.
[the psychological side-effects are worse than the physical ones, sometimes]
Not long after the injury, I moved away from home to an apartment and have dealt with all of it my own.

In a bizarre twist of fate, my dad had a woman land her car on top of his truck and he sustained similar but lesser head injuries of his own.
He still struggles with the effects of his own head injury and I do and say whatever I can to lessen his stress and frustration.

It may sound crazy but I'm grateful for the injury.
It made me a much better person than I used to be.

I'll always consider it my "second chance".