Brain Damage, Therapeutics and the Blood-Brain Barrier

Blood-Brain Bar­ri­er Less Per­me­able in New­borns than Adults after Acute Stroke (press release):

“The blood-brain bar­ri­er is selec­tive­ly per­me­able and blocks unwant­ed mol­e­cules from enter­ing into the brain. The selec­tiv­i­ty is achieved through fine coor­di­na­tion in func­tion of many trans­port­ing sys­tems in endothe­lial cells, which line the inte­ri­or of blood ves­sels, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion between endothe­lial cells and sev­er­al types of cells in the brain. When blood flow in an artery to the brain is blocked by a blood clot, as occurs in arte­r­i­al stroke, brain ener­gy metab­o­lism is com­pro­mised, and ion and oth­er trans­port­ing sys­tems mal­func­tion, lead­ing to blood-brain disruption.…The new find­ing sug­gests, the researchers said, that drugs used to treat stroke need to be tai­lored to the spe­cif­ic make­up of the neonate blood-brain barrier…“This study is a very crit­i­cal step towards devel­op­ing ther­a­peu­tics, but these find­ings are a tip of the ice­berg and a lot is still to be learned,” said Vexler. “We’re mov­ing to char­ac­ter­ize the poten­tial for neona­tal repair. Some brain dam­age can’t be diag­nosed ear­ly, but might show up lat­er. Now we are exper­i­ment­ing with post­pon­ing cer­tain treat­ments or tweak­ing some sig­nal­ing mech­a­nisms to see if we can enhance the capac­i­ty of the imma­ture brain to repair itself.”

To learn more:

• Good expla­na­tion, and source of pic above:  The Blood Brain Bar­ri­er (Neu­ro­science for Kids)
• Blood–brain bar­ri­er (Wikipedia)