Scientists say they are one step closer to showing that their experimental hydrogel technology – better known as “brain glue” – can help people with traumatic brain injury. In a recent study, they found that their brain glue helped prevent long-term damage and tissue loss in rats’ injured brains, while speeding up the healing process.
Severe traumatic brain injuries, such as life-threatening accidents or aggression, can be very difficult to treat. Even in the best cases, people often have to go through a long recovery process, and they May experience lifelong complications. But researchers at the University of Georgia, led by Lohitash Karumbaiah, were working on developing new ways to repair these types of acutely damaged brains.
A promising approach developed by Karumbaiah and his team is brain glue. The adhesive is actually made up of complex sugars, arranged in a special way to look like the sugars found naturally in the brain. Normally, these compounds bind to other proteins that together help protect and repair brain cells. By implanting glue in people’s brains shortly after injury, the hope is that it will increase our natural ability to heal, avoiding otherwise untreatable brain damage and ensuring better outcomes for patients.
Previous team research suggested that the glue appears to work as intended in the short term in rats with severe brain damage, with documented benefits until four weeks later. But this new study, published Last month in Science Advances, I found that the benefits of treatment could also be observed 20 weeks after injury, compared to a control group of rats.
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“Animal subjects who were implanted with brain glue actually showed repair of severely damaged brain tissue,” Karumbaiah said in a statement. statement released by the university. “The animals also achieved a faster recovery time compared to subjects without these materials.”
Treated rats he seemed to be improving cognitively. As part of the experiment, they were given a simple task to reach and understand an object, and those treated performed better than the control group. The researchers also found evidence of improved healing in regions of the brain that are known to be involved in this task, further indicating that glue is responsible for better performance.
Rats and humans share a lot of similar brain circuits, so it is very possible that this adhesive can help people with such injuries. But additional studies and clinical trials in humans would be needed let’s do this before we can begin to see this type of technology widely used in hospitals. To this end, Karumbaiah did it applied for a brain adhesive patent and his team obtained funding to continue the research. It pays off, it’s the kind of work that could help not only people with severe traumatic brain injuries, but also other neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease.