Tokyo, August 12: One side of the brain rearranges its neuronal circuits to replace the functions lost due to stroke, a study by researchers in Japan suggests.
A team at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Aichi Prefecture found such rearrangements of neuronal circuits through mice experiments, according to the study published in Wednesday’s issue of the US Journal of Neuroscience.
It is widely believed the right and left sides of the human brain have different functions. But the experiments on mice indicate the unaffected side in stroke victims is capable of assuming the role of the damaged side, the study says.
The results can be applied to rehabilitative programmes for stroke survivors in the future, said Junichi Nabekura, professor of neurophysiology at the institute and one of the researchers who conducted the study.
The team induced ischemic strokes in the mice’s right brain, leaving their front left legs paralysed.
In one to two weeks, however, the team observed active rearrangement of synapses, which transmit signals between neurons, in part of their left brains.
After four weeks, the team observed in the mice’s left brains activity patterns similar to those lost from the right brains, with the mice becoming capable of moving their paralysed legs.
The left part of brain rearranged neuronal circuits to assume the functions that used to be controlled by right brain, Nabekura said.
–Agencies