“Ultrasound used to jump-start brains of patients with severe brain injuries”
(BioEdge — February 6, 2021)
In 2016, a team led by UCLA’s Martin Monti reported that a 25-year-old man recovering from a coma had made remarkable progress following a treatment to jump-start his brain using ultrasound.
Now, Monti and colleagues report…that two more patients have made impressive progress thanks to the same technique….
The first is a 56-year-old man who had suffered a stroke and had been in a minimally conscious state….
In the days following the second treatment, he also demonstrated, for the first time since the stroke, the ability to use a pen on paper and to raise a bottle to his mouth, as well as to communicate and answer questions.
“Stanford researchers ‘stunned’ by stem cell experiment that helped stroke patient walk”
(Washington Post — June 2, 2016)
The one-time therapy involved surgeons drilling a hole into the study participants’ skulls and injecting stem cells in several locations around the area damaged by the stroke. These stem cells were harvested from the bone marrow of adult donors. While the procedure sounds dramatic, it is considered relatively simple as far as brain surgery goes. The patients were conscious the whole time and went home the same day.
