The research was directed by Caty Casas and included the participation of David Romeo and Xavier Navarro, researchers at the INc-UAB and CIBERNED, and Joaquim Forés of the Hospital Clínic Barcelona.

The new pharmacological agent NeuroHeal was designed to imitate and strengthen neuroprotection mechanisms which naturally command neurons to deal with minor injuries successfully.

The pre-clinical trials indicate that oral administration permits maintaining the viability of motor neurons for at least six months after root avulsion, even in cases of delayed surgical reimplantation, as happens in clinical practices. In addition, the treatment accelerates nerve regeneration, drastically reduces denervation-induced muscular atrophy and increases functional contacts between the nerve and affected muscles.

“There is currently no pharmacological treatment indicated as a coadjuvant therapy to maintain alive a neural population after an injury and until there is a surgical intervention, nor is there any to accelerate the posterior regeneration process. This new drugs acts in both senses”, Caty Casas explains.

Injuries to peripheral nerves are produced in traffic, work and sport accidents and can cause nerve sectioning. For example, a finger injury in someone who works with instruments or dangerous machinery, or a strong blow to the body in a motorcycle accident can produce nerve root avulsion in the most vulnerable areas, such as lumbar or spinal roots. The surgical reconstitution may be done days after the patient is stabilised and diagnosed and during that time motor neurons unconnected from the nervous roots and circuit undergo a fatal and irreparable degeneration process.

In addition, if the roots and nerves are repaired through surgery, the surviving motor neurons must regenerate their axons through these same nerves until re-establishing a connection with the muscles they controlled and recovering movements. In this case it is also a race against time. It can take up to two years for patients to regenerate their nervous circuit. The longer it takes to regenerate, the more irreversible the muscle atrophy becomes, thus hindering a good recovery.

Combination of Two Drugs

NeuroHeal is a combination of two replacement drugs, Acamprosate and Ribavirin, which are currently used to treat other illnesses not at all related to the peripheral nervous system. Researchers designed it by using artificial intelligence computational tools and basing them on the biology of systems to interpret available biological big data and simulate the biological response from thousands of pharmacological combinations. The combination of the new compound presented the best profile amongst all of them. This computational study was conducted thanks the collaboration of Anaxomics Biotech.

Researchers have already patented the new drug and hope that it will be used in the near future. “The fact that the two compounds in NeuroHeal are already being used and have demonstrated their pharmacokinetics and safety, could give way to a quicker implementation in clinical use”, the researcher concludes.

Image:
http://www.uab.cat/uabdivulga/img/INc-UAB_NeuroHeal2.jpg
The analysis of the ventral area of the spinal cord and sciatica (diagram indicating the areas) through confocal microscope clearly demonstrates that the reimplantation model (RE) treated with NeuroHeal (NH) presents more motor axonal ramifications (positive ChAT, in red) than those regenerated (positive GAP43, in magenta) by untreated animals.

Original article: Romeo-Guitart D, Forés J, Navarro X, Casas C. Boosted Regeneration and Reduced Denervated Muscle Atrophy by NeuroHeal in a Pre-clinical Model of lumbar root avulsion with delayed reimplantation. Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 12028 (2017). DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-11086-3

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