2023-08-17 19:07:09
During 2021, cerebral vascular disease caused more than 37,000 deaths in Mexico.
Although most patients survive the acute phase, persistent neurological problems are likely to jeopardize their quality of life.
The first results of the phase 1 clinical trial in humans were published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) has become the leading cause of long-term disability globally. In addition, its consequences can become deadly and end the lives of patients. With this in mind, for the first time a study identified all the benefits offered by deep brain stimulation for the treatment of this type of cases.
The consequences of the current lifestyle
In the first instance, the brain diseases have shown an increase in their incidence during the last decades. The reasons are quite clear and are related to the lifestyles that prevail among the population today.
people with obesity, habits such as smoking and high levels of stress they are more susceptible. In addition, there are also other related conditions such as hypertension and diabetes which, together, form a ticking time bomb.
In this regard, the Ministry of Health (SSa) affirms that In Mexico, there are 188 cases of stroke for every 100,000 inhabitants. Although most could be prevented with lifestyle modifications from adolescence or early adulthood.
Now, a first-in-human trial based on deep brain stimulation for post-stroke rehabilitation patients conducted by researchers at Cleveland Clinic demonstrated that this technique targeting the dentate nucleus is safe and feasible.
The phase 1 trial Electrical stimulation of the dentate nucleus for hemiparesis of the upper extremities due to ischemic stroke (EDEN) concluded that the majority of participants (9 of 12) showed improvements in both motor impairment and function.
What did it consist of?
Each participant underwent an intervention deep brain stimulation which consisted of the surgical implantation of electrodes in the cerebellum. Once connected to a device similar to a pacemaker, the electrodes were used to deliver small electrical impulses to help people regain control of their movements.
Following discharge and recovery from the operation, the participants completed months of physical therapy, first with the deep brain stimulation device turned off for several weeks and then on for four to eight months. It was after turning on the device that the most significant improvements were observed. The results have been published in the journal Nature Medicine.
These findings are based on more than a decade of preclinical work led by principal investigators Andre Machado, MD, Ph.D, and Kenneth Baker, MD, Ph.D., of the Cleveland Clinic.
“These results are reassuring for patients, as study participants had been disabled for more than a year and, in some cases, three years after their stroke. This provides us with a potential opportunity to introduce much-needed improvements in rehabilitation in the chronic phases of stroke recovery,” said Dr. Machado, president of the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute.
Based on the research, the specialist patented the method of deep brain stimulation in recovery from stroke. Boston Scientific licensed those patents and provided the Vercise DBS systems used in the trial.
“The safety and feasibility data from this initial study, combined with the possible symptomatic improvements, strongly support the need for further larger trials to test whether cerebellar DBS is indeed a potential treatment for motor impairment after a stroke,” said Dr. Brooks Gross, program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
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