Protein Completely Restores Motor Function
 

Cut the crap and get this on the front burner.
From this morning's Science Daily:

Two new studies by UC Irvine biologists have found that a protein naturally occurring in humans restores motor function in rats after a stroke. Administered directly to the brain, the protein restores 99 percent of lost movement; if it's given through the nose, 70 percent of lost movement is regained. Untreated rats improve by only 30 percent.....

One month after the study rats suffered an induced stroke (equal to about a year for humans), some were injected with TGF alpha. Within a month, they had regained nearly all their motor function, hopping up with both legs in the cylinder exercise and not favoring a side in the directional test. Rats that did not receive treatment improved just 30 percent.

Scientists examined the rats' brains and found that TGF alpha was stimulating neuron growth. First, it prompted adult stem cells in the brain to divide, creating more cells. Those cells then turned into brain cells and moved to the injured part of the brain, replacing neurons lost to the stroke. These new neurons, the scientists believe, helped restore motor function.....

TGF Alpha
 

As with all brain rat research (thousands of papers I guess) my hope is always raised for a while but soon the research paper is forgotten.
I wonder if TGF Alpha is a new discovery? has any one heard of it before?
How differnt is rat brain differs from that of humans in its reaction to drugs?
Any way the big claim of this paper is:
"It's becoming more and more clear that the brain is like any other organ: It has a lot of potential to regenerate," said Darius Gleason, a developmental & cell biology graduate student who worked on the study. "We are just emulating nature by giving a little nudge to what the brain is trying to do itself."
I can only pray that this will be true one day
Imad