New Hope For Stroke Patients: Reversing Stroke Damage By Jumpstarting Growth Of Nerve Fibers

Anti-nogo is among several new approaches under study that potentially could reverse stroke damage, researchers wrote. Nogo-A is a protein that inhibits the growth of nerve fibers called axons. It serves as a check on runaway nerve growth that could cause a patient to be overly sensitive to pain, or experience involuntary movements. (The protein is called nogo because it in effect says to axons: "No go.") In anti nogo immunotherapy, an antibody disables the nogo protein. The left side of the brain controls movements on the right side of the body, and vice versa. Thus, a stroke on the left side of the brain can cause paralysis on the right side of the body. In such a patient, anti-nogo would, it's hoped, spur the growth of axons from the healthy right side of the brain. These axons would then grow into the right side of the body and restore functions lost by the stroke. Anti nogo has been tried on rats that have experienced strokes in old age. As in people, strokes in rats affect one side of the body. Following strokes, the rats were unable to pick up pellets of food with the front paw on the affected side. After anti-nogo, function in this paw was almost completely restored in some rats.
Source: ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2009)