This news may provide information concerning drug therapy and traumatic brain injury. A study from UC Davis claims that the main objective was to find out whether the drug, a neuroactive steroid known as allopregnanolone, may be an effectual treatment for acute brain injuries.
Active duty military personnel in war zones apparently also undergo grave brain injury owing to blasts from the explosion of crude bombs or unprepared volatile devices.
“Allopregnanolone has never been tested in humans with brain injuries but it has been shown to be effective in animal models. We believe that this approach can provide patients with improved survival and cognition and better overall neurological outcomes. We also will be looking to see if it prevents the development of post-traumatic epilepsy,” commented, Michael Rogawski, professor and chair of the Department of Neurology in the UC Davis School of Medicine.
He added, “Post-traumatic epilepsy is a major complication of traumatic brain injury that is associated with psychosocial disability and may be a contributing factor to premature death after head injury. The incidence of post-traumatic epilepsy is 10 to 15 percent for adults with severe brain injuries and has been as high as 50 percent in the military.”
Allopregnanolone is said to be a steroid that guards against seizures and brain injury. It is apparently generated in the body from the female sex hormone progesterone. Lately, progesterone has supposedly been examined and the experts seemed to find potential in treating brain injury among humans. But it is believed to be hard in crafting, administering and generating hormonal side effects. In animals, allopregnanolone is thought to be more powerful as compared to progesterone in treating traumatic brain injury and apparently it does not contain progesterone’s hormonal activity.
Every 18- to 59-year-old patients suffering from acute direct or piercing head trauma observed in the UC Davis Medical Center emergency department would be requested to take part in the clinical trial. Patients who sign up would be given either allopregnanolone or a placebo in hours of a brain injury and at frequent intervals over five-day duration.
The study authors anticipate in recruiting around 136 male and female patients to decide whether getting the drug could diminish brain impairment, decrease or get rid of post-traumatic epileptic seizures, and enhance patients’ psychological performance and by and large quality of life.
UC Davis will produce allopregnanolone by means of the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures’ Good Manufacturing Practices Facility headed by Gerhard Bauer, an assistant professor of hematology and oncology.