New way to effective stroke recovery....

Thursday, 9-11-2014

We now know how to improve or stop the physical part of many brain conditions by causing the growth of new brain cells and nerve cells. (See below for details.)

These same practices can largely prevent those conditions.

This includes turning down or off depression, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of mental decline. 

A study of using them for PTSD, for example, found that when this was done well enough to show physical improvements, the condition went away as a result.  In addition, in depression and PTSD, effective talk therapy showed some of these positive brain changes.  So the most effective treatment is to do both at once!

In mild strokes this also works.  But in more severe strokes the interconnections between parts of the brain is lost enough that the parts of the brain no longer get the stimulation from connections to other parts of the brain and don’t recover as well or at all.

That also prevents the return of function.

But what if there were a way to jump start the recovery of the hippocampus that is the master connector to many parts of the brain? 

Then full recovery or much greater recovery of the brain cells and function would become possible!

The VERY good news is that we now can do just that.

In Medical News Today, that study was reported a bit over a week ago.

This study was done at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Here’s the key quote:

"The Northwestern study is the first to show TMS improves memory long after treatment. In the past, TMS has been used in a limited way to temporarily change brain function to improve performance during a test, for example, making someone push a button slightly faster while the brain is being stimulated. The study shows that TMS can be used to improve memory for events at least 24 hours after the stimulation is given.

It isn't possible to directly stimulate the hippocampus with TMS because it's too deep in the brain for the magnetic fields to penetrate. So, using an MRI scan, Voss and colleagues identified a superficial brain region a mere centimeter from the surface of the skull with high connectivity to the hippocampus. He wanted to see if directing the stimulation to this spot would in turn stimulate the hippocampus. It did."

This may cause stroke rehab to work!

That's because in strokes you often have nerves that are alive but no longer connected enough to create function.

But if you once re-connect them and restore them to service, function can return.  AND, the restoration of the reconnected neurons then increase instead of decreasing due to lack of use!

1.  Yes, the hippocampus acts as a director or "orchestra conductor."  But it also acts like a central hub much like Grand Central Station does for trains going into and out of New York City.

So jump re-starting it in this way could be exceptionally effective!

2.  In addition, once that happens, you can add the things that cause the brain to grow new nerves and brain cells and cause an add on effect that may restore even more function!

This very likely will prove to then continue to improve the repairs and return of functions.

Exercise that can be done particularly with force or speed, and taking DHA and choline and maybe uridine and bacopa together have been shown to cause the release of enough BDNF to restore function by itself.  So doing it on top of this kind of connection restoration could be quite effective.  Even doing the exercise has tested to do this.  Taking DHA has also and a study of ingesting DHA, choline, and uridine at the same time tested to do so in Alzheimer’s patients.  Bacopa, an herbal supplement from India has been shown to do this also. 

The ideal combination of these is not known.  But it seems clear from the research that has been done that combining these causes more repair than only doing one.

In addition, in the early stages you might need to do 3 to 5 of these TMS treatments a week for the first few weeks until enough restoration has taken place to then have the recovery continue on its own.

The great news is that combining these two kinds of treatment sounds very likely to be effective!  In stroke patients that could literally mean restoring sensory feeling, motor control, and language skills.

(And, since harm to the hippocampus is a driver of Alzheimer’s disease, this combination treatment might also be able to reverse it in later stages which current practices do not.)

Here’s the link to the original article:

Memory boosted by electric current to brain: finding has implications for

stroke, Alzheimer's and brain injury

http://mnt.to/l/4qmw

Stimulating a particular region in the brain via non-invasive delivery of

electrical current using magnetic pulses, called Transcranial Magnetic

Stimulation, improves memory, reports a new...