Helping Preemies

This article is about research done for treatment of premature babies with neurological damage and also patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). HHMI investigator David Rowitch says, “We routinely take care of babies in the United States that are born at about six months of gestation, weighing about a pound. About 10–20 percent will develop cerebral palsy—an inability to move and talk normally—and as many as 50 percent will develop learning, cognitive, or behavioral problems.” A majority of these problems found in infants are a result of damage to the myelin sheath, which covers and insulates the axons of nerve cells found in the white matter of the brain. During previous research, Rowitch found a correlation between the damaged nerve cells of these premature babies and those of patients with MS. The reason for this is because in both cases the cells that make and repair the myelin sheath called oligodendrocytes aren’t able to repair the myelin sheath. “The obvious question is, why aren’t these cells—which are all showing up at the right time in the right place—finishing the job they are almost hardwired to do?” Rowitch says. “We figured there had to be some inhibitor present, right there in the area of the lesion.” Rowitch and his team measured an expression of the gene AXIN2, which showed an over activation of the Wnt pathway, which is a signaling pathway for development of many major organs. The team then injected an experimental drug that inhibits Wnt directly into the parts of the damaged myelin. The results showed that injuries healed 30 percent faster, because the cells were able to differentiate into oligodendrocytes that would then repair the myelin sheath.

http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/nov2011/upfront/rowitch_neonatal_brain_bank.html