If this can be reproduced by others, it is very exciting news. Note that it is the combination of activity and stem cells, not just the cells...
People once dependent on wheelchairs after having a stroke are walking again since receiving injections of stem cells into their brains. Participants in the small trial also saw improvements in their speech and arm movements.
“One 71-year-old woman could only move her left thumb at the start of the trial,” says Gary Steinberg, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University who performed the procedure on some of the 18 participants. “She can now walk and lift her arm above her head.”
Run by SanBio of Mountain View, California, this trial is the second to test whether stem cell injections into patients’ brains can help ease disabilities resulting from stroke. Patients in the first, carried out by UK company ReNeuron, also showed measurable reductions in disability a year after receiving their injections and beyond.
All patients in the latest trial showed improvements. Their scores on a 100-point scale for evaluating mobility – with 100 being completely mobile – improved on average by 11.4 points, a margin considered to be clinically meaningful for patients. “The most dramatic improvements were in strength, coordination, ability to walk, the ability to use hands and the ability to communicate, especially in those whose speech had been damaged by the stroke,” says Steinberg.
In both trials, improvements in patients’ mobility had plateaued since having had strokes between six months and three years previously.
“We used to think the affected brain circuits were dead,” says Steinberg. “Now, we have to rethink this, and I personally think the circuits are inhibited, and our treatment helps to disinhibit them.”