Here’s a scary statistic: Stroke is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US. It is also the most common cause of long-term disability. To put it plainly, it is almost certain that you or someone you know will die or be disabled by a stroke.
I didn’t just say that to make you depressed, though. A study just got published that might lead to a way of protecting people from the damage a stroke causes. But before we get into the details, though, lets recap on what a stroke actually is.
Simply put, a stroke (more specifically, an ischemic stroke, which is the most common type) occurs when a clot or other blockage cuts off blood flow to a part of your brain. If blood flow does not resume after more than a few seconds, brain cells start to die. The damage caused by this cell death is permanent. Strokes can occur in any part of the brain, and the damage they cause can range from mild to severe.
Ok, back to the study. Researchers at UC Irvine found that by stimulating a single whisker on a rat that was having a stroke, they were able to prevent its brain from being damaged. It turns out that stimulating the area of the brain that is being deprived of blood flow. When scientists stroked a rat’s whisker for four minutes within two hours of the blood flow in a brain artery being blocked, blood was quickly diverted to other arteries, which expanded to accommodate the extra blood flow. This allowed blood to enter the part of the brain that was initially deprived of blood by the blockage. Since nerve cells are now getting the nutrients and oxygen they need, most of them don’t die, as they normally would have, so there is in little to no brain damage.
If you’re confused, imagine that you are driving to school and find that El Camino is blocked by an accident. If all other roads were closed too, you would never get to class on time. But if there were other routes you could take, you would be able to find another road that gets you where you want to (or should I say have to?☺) go. With whisker stimulation, blood is able to find its way around the blockage the same way you find another way around gridlocked El Camino.
But people don’t have whiskers like rats do, so what does this have to do with us? The truth is, we don’t know yet. Perhaps rat’s brains are the only ones that can do this. However, because strokes are so common and can have devastating effects, attempts will be made to apply this research to humans. Parts of our bodies, like lips or fingers, are wired to the same parts of the brain as a rat’s whiskers. Stimulating them might have the same effect. Who knows? In the future, first aid treatment for a stroke might include massage or listening to music. It’s all a matter of finding the right nerves to stimulate.
The picture: UCI researchers found that mechanically stroking a single whisker activated a rat’s cerebral cortex — seen lighting up in magenta and blue — and prompted obstructed blood to take other routes to the brain. Photo by Christopher Lay and Cynthia Chen-Bee (researchers)
Sources:
Wilson, J. (July 13, 2010). UCI Irvine Release: Whisker stimulation prevents strokes in rats, UCI study finds. In UCI Irvine Today. Retrieved November 2, 2010, from http://today.uci.edu/news/2010/07/nr_whisker_100713.php.
Lay CC, Davis MF, Chen-Bee CH, Frostig RD (2010) Mild Sensory Stimulation Completely Protects the Adult Rodent Cortex from Ischemic Stroke. PLoS ONE 5(6): e11270. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.001127
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