From Odessey Magazine:

Future Treatments for Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Explored at the University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center

After traumatic injury to a person’s brain or spinal cord, time is the major factor in the ultimate severity of that injury. Much of the damage to the injured nervous tissue occurs during the first several hours and days following the incident, which suggests that “secondary injury” might be prevented by early treatment with neuroprotective drugs. Edward Hall, director of the University of Kentucky Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC), is leading a team of scientists who are testing various drugs that might inhibit secondary injury to the brain or spinal cord. This team includes Jim Geddes, Patrick Sullivan, Kathryn Saatman, and Alexander Rabchevsky (SCoBIRC), Stephen Scheff (Sanders-Brown Center on Aging) and Joe Springer (physical medicine and rehabilitation).

Three different types of drugs are currently being tested. These drugs block the damaging effects of oxygen free radicals, prevent the loss of energy production in cells’ mitochondria, and inhibit the degradation of nerve cell proteins by an enzyme known as calpain. One of those treatments, using the drug cyclosporine A, is currently being tested in severely brain-injured patients by SCoBIRC Clinical Director Byron Young.

Hall was a pioneer in the discovery and development of the steroid drug methylprednisolone, the only approved drug that has been shown to be effective for the treatment of spinal cord injury. But he is hopeful that the protective effects of the newer types of drugs now being tested by his group will far surpass the benefits of methylprednisolone in treating the estimated 11,000 Americans who suffer a spinal cord injury each year and the 1.5 million who sustain traumatic brain injuries.

For more information about SCoBIRC and its research programs, please call (859) 323-7901. This article originally appeared in Odyssey, the magazine highlighting the latest research advances, innovative scholarship, and outstanding people at the University of Kentucky.