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Stem cells can help the brain recover from a stroke
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
Recently, a group of neurosurgeons conducted research, during which scientists tried to restore damaged brain cells after a stroke. Stem cells from donors' bone marrow were used as a drug. The results obtained during the experiments were announced by specialists at a conference on neurosurgery held in the United States.
Experts decided to use stem cells to treat people after previous experiments on animals showed the good effectiveness of this treatment method.
For the new research project, scientists selected eighteen volunteers aged 33 to 75 who had suffered an ischemic stroke in the past. To treat the volunteers, scientists extracted stem cells from the bone marrow of relatives and injected them into the brains of the test group participants.
Despite the fact that almost all participants in the research project had the typical consequences of brain damage (paralysis, poor speech, etc.), after the new treatment method, the patients' condition improved significantly. Only three participants had complications from stem cell therapy. One of them had bleeding, another had seizures, and the third had pneumonia, but over time their condition normalized.
The health of two women improved significantly immediately after the treatment began, and the day after the first procedure they were able to walk independently and began to talk. The women had suffered a stroke two years ago.
During the study, specialists monitored cells damaged by a stroke. The therapy showed good results for most volunteers. After six months of treatment, the paralysis and weakness of the participants in the experiment began to disappear. In two women, the consequences of a stroke completely disappeared (one of them was 33 years old, and the other - 71 years old); before the treatment, both women were completely paralyzed. However, the author of this research project, Steinberg, believes that this kind of recovery is not standard, and since there was no control group during the study, it is difficult to say what exactly influenced the recovery - the stem cell therapy itself or other factors during the procedure.
As American experts note, treatment with stem cells could become a real breakthrough in the treatment of post-stroke conditions and could give hope for a normal and healthy life to people who have suffered a stroke.
A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is disrupted by a hemorrhage or blood clot. Deprived of oxygen, brain cells begin to die off quickly. With intensive physical therapy, people can regain some of the abilities lost as a result of a stroke, but experts say there is currently no way to restore damaged brain cells.
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