Central nervous system injury treatment

Tso and Lam suggested that astaxanthin could be useful for prevention and treatment of neuronal damage associated with age-related macular degeneration and may also be effective in treating ischemic reperfusion injury, Alzheimer s disease, Parkinson s disease, spinal cord injuries, and other types of central nervous system injuries. Astaxanthin was found to easily cross the blood-brain barrier and did not form crystals in the eye. 

Today, with the exception of bone marrow for hematopoietic reconstitution, therapeutic cellular transplantation is an emerging technology. In recent years novel approaches in the potential restoration of function through cellular transplantation have included the use of fetal human or xenogeneic neural tissue for Parkinson s disease, ectopically implanted pancreatic islets for diabetes, Schwann cells and olfactory ensheathing glia for spinal cord injury, encapsulated chromaffin cells for pain, and various types of stem cells for the treatment of diabetes, cardiac disease, and central nervous system injuries or disease [2], There have also been trials of encapsulated cells to provide enzymes that either remove toxic products or provide activation of prodrugs to therapeutics, usually anticancer derivatives. 

The pathophysiological significance of the acute burst in HO and lipid peroxidation in the hippocampus is underscored by the pre-ischaemic or pre-hypoxic treatment with free radical scavengers or antioxidants in attenuating the selective CAl damage associated with these models. The current state of antioxidant therapy in acute central nervous system injury was recently reviewed by Gilgun-Sherki et al. (2002). 

The study of the Central Nervous System (CNS) is the primary clinical indication for the use of extracellular Gd(III) agents. The majority of these pathologies are brain tumors, and three quarters of them are represented by metastases occurring in patients undergoing treatment for systemic cancer (Fig. 1). Other brain diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral injuries can be also investigated by contrast-enhanced MRI. 

Baclofen is a GABA agonist at GABA B receptors and it has a presynaptic inhibitory function by reducing calcium influx. Its indication is increased extensor tone and clonus. Intrathecal administration may control severe spasticity pain. It is used for the treatment of spastic movement, especially in instances of spinal cord injury, spastic diplegia, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Its central nervous system effects include drowsiness, somnolence and seizure activity in epileptic patients. 

Chapter VIII - The central nervous system (CNS) elicits limited capacity to recover from injury. Though considerable efforts and means have been deployed to find treatments for neurological diseases, disorders and injuries, there is still no cure for these ailments, and new alternatives for therapy must be explored. Because they generate the main phenotypes of the nervous system, neural stem cells (NSCs) hold the promise to cure a broad range of neurological diseases and injuries. With the confirmation that neurogenesis occurs in the adult... 

Clai-k WM, Calcagno FA, Gabler WL, Smidi JR, Coull BM (1994) Reducdon of central nervous system reperfusion injury in rabbits using doxycycline treatment. Stroke 25 1411—1415. 

Heydrich s sudden collapse—from apparently only minor injuries to coma and subsequent death—may have baffled the doctors, but in retrospect matches completely the symptomatology of BTX poisoning. After an initial period of calm, lasting perhaps for a day or so, the victim lapses into a progressive paralysis which fails to respond to treatment. As X went to work on Heydrich s central nervous system, the doctors could only stand by helplessly as their famous patient succumbed to the classic symptoms of poisoning by BTX ... 

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