Nat commun: cell therapy can restore memory in patients with head injury

November 17, 2019 / biourn / -- researchers at the University of California, Irvine have recently developed a breakthrough cell therapy to improve memory and prevent seizures after brain injury The study was published in the recent journal Nature communications Head injury affects two million Americans a year, and the disease causes brain cell death and inflammation People with head injuries often lose memory for life and develop epilepsy (image source: www Pixabay Com) in this study, the UCI team transplanted embryonic progenitor cells capable of producing inhibitory interneurons, a specific type of neuron that controls brain circuit activity, into the brain of mice with traumatic brain injury The researchers found that transplanted neurons migrate to damaged tissue, where they establish new connections with injured brain cells and develop further Within one month of the treatment, the mice showed signs of memory improvement, such as being able to tell if there was discomfort in the box Their memories returned to the same level as those of mice that had never suffered brain damage "Inhibitory neurons play an important role in many aspects of memory, but they are very likely to die after brain injury," said Dr Robert hunt, assistant professor of anatomy and neurobiology at UCI medical school Although we can't stop the death of intermediate neurons, it's exciting that we can replace them and reconstruct their neural connections " This is not the first time that the authors have used the interneuronal transplantation to restore memory in mice In 2018, the UCI team used a similar approach to improve memory in mice with genetic diseases For researchers, this is still exciting progress "Regeneration of neurons that die after brain injury is something neuroscientists have been trying to do for a long time But usually the transplanted cells can't survive, or they can't migrate or develop into functional neurons " To further test their observations, the authors used drugs to silence transplanted neurons, leading to memory problems again At present, there is no treatment for head injuries If this result in mice can be replicated in humans, it could have a huge impact on patients Information source: new cell therapy improvements memory and stops seizes following TBI original source: Bingyao Zhu, Jisu EOM, Robert F hunt Transformed interactions improve memory precision after traumatic brain investment Nature communications, 2019; 10 (1) doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-13170-w