As the last poster on the topic of therapies, today I am touching upon something very new, brain re-engineering. The term ‘re-engineering’ I am using to imply making physical changes. The fMRI scan or PET scan of brains show levels of activities in different parts of the brain. PET scans show brain processes by using the sugar glucose in the brain to illustrate where neurons are firing. Because of lack of activities or lower levels of activities in many parts of brain of persons with autism, the right kinds of networks of neutrons doesn’t form, leading to the persons suffering from many cognitive, behavioural, language and social limitations.
Regenerative medicines, the most recent and emerging branch of medical science, deals with functional restoration of tissues or organs for the patients suffering from injuries / chronic diseases. The spectacular progress in the field of stem cell research has laid the foundation for cell based therapies for diseases and disorders, which can not be cured by conventional medicines. [This I have taken as it is from a paper in International journal of Cell Biology].
Lots of research happening in Many Universities and other Neuro-science institutes around the world; the work from Duke University and Stanford University seems to lead the way.
In 5th poster of this Autism Awareness series campaign, I have indicated that because of gradual reduction of degree of plasticity of brain as the age progresses, the ability of brain to modify its connections to re-wire itself diminishes as the person grows. This is the reason why “Early intervention” is critical. That opportunity was lost for my daughter. One possibility was, creating new neurons in the brain which can repair the cells of affected regions in the brain, and then go for an “early intervention”. Just a dream!
About 5 years back, we did get an opportunity to create new neutrons in the brain through stem cells transplant. The method was part of a ‘clinical trial’ process. As it is still under research, there is no approval by FDA for this. But based on my own research and conversations with many researchers in the field, we took a decision to go ahead with stem cell transplant into Pratibha’s brain, from her own bone marrow. We went with a hope that there will not be any negative impact or side effects. The transplanted stem cells get multiplied many folds and transform themselves into neurons. Once the transplant is done, I felt like having a real neural network to train. After working on many academic and industry projects on Artificial Neural Network (ANN), here is an opportunity and a challenge for me to train a Real Neural Network (RNN)! Twenty two parameters were identified, intensive therapy sessions were given (predominant being with music), measurements for these 22 parameters were taken daily, and monitored the progress. Course corrections in network training was done based on the changes observed for the chosen parameters. Almost an year long intensive work on her, resulted in many significant improvements. Similar intensive therapies were tried before, with not much changes. I am sure, the re-engineering of the brain, by introducing new neurons and doing intensive therapies to train the fresh neutrons and develop networks in the brain, that led to improvements such as close to 80% reduction in aggression, considerably improved cognitive ability, refinement of many social behaviours and better communication. [The two brain PET scan images presented in the poster today is of Pratibha’s, first one taken just before the stem cell transplant and the second one 2 years after that. Significant changes in activity levels are seen in the scans].
Large number of clinical trials are in progress today on using stem cells for autism. Hoping that this will open up a completely new therapy for autism. Because of the promise shown by stem cell based regenerative medicine approach, quite a few clinics without having the required equipments, expertise and capabilities have come up in the country, and exploit parents. But there are genuine ones too.
I will conclude this post with a quote: “Autistic Brains make connections in unusual ways”.
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