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Source: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200807061122.htm
Brain fever patients may be saved from post-treatment effects
New Delhi (PTI): Neurological disabilities that afflict a patient with brain fever post treatment may become a thing of the past.
This is what the scientists at the National Brain Research Centre say as they claim to have discovered the reason for the disability that strikes a patient after treatment for the Japanese Encephalitis.
This discovery, they say, will now help them approach this disease therapeutically and protect future cases from irrecoverable damages.
Japanese Encephalitis (JE), commonly known as brain fever, is one of the prevalent mosquito-borne encephalitis in India and entire South East Asia with 30,000-50,000 cases reported annually.
Besides resulting in thousands of fatalities each year, JE virus infection causes prominent neurological sequal in approximately one-third of the survivors.
Children are more vulnerable targets of this virus. Post treatment, the good recovery group commonly encounter psychiatric problems, which include mental retardation, learning disabilities, speech and movement disorders and behavioural abnormalities.
"At our lab we have found that the JE virus damages the brain in two ways. It not only kills brain cells but at the same time prevents the birth of new cells from neural stem/progenitor cells (NPC) thus depleting the NPC pool in the brain," said Dr Anirban Basu, researcher with NBRC.
"This happens even after medication. And this finally leads to neurological damage that may either lead to paralysis, speech difficulty, involuntary movements disorders in people who have survived the disease," Basu said.
"Knowing the mechanism, we can start to approach this therapeutically," he said, adding "this indicates that we might eventually treat this form of neurological and psychiatric problems by either ramping up brain repair or protecting the repair mechanism."
Children are at a dynamic stage of brain development, hence infection at this stage can have devastating effects on mental functions later in life.
The brain fever has been mainly prevalent in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
"Our study has tried to explore how JEV infection leads to development of long-term cognitive deficits in the survivors," says Basu.
The former director of National Institute of Mental Helath and NeuroSciences, Dr M Gouri Devi said: "With this discovery there will be a new way of loooking at JE. Now work will begin on introducing drugs either to lessen the impact of the virus or protect the stem cells."
It's the first time that a mosquito-borne virus has ever been shown to affect neural stem cells, Basu said. Neural stem/progenitor cells are the saviours of the brain following any insult or infection and via the process of neurogenesis help the recovery process. These cells have the ability to self-renew over lifetime and generate both neurons and glia, which make up the CNS.
Brain fever patients may be saved from post-treatment effects
New Delhi (PTI): Neurological disabilities that afflict a patient with brain fever post treatment may become a thing of the past.
This is what the scientists at the National Brain Research Centre say as they claim to have discovered the reason for the disability that strikes a patient after treatment for the Japanese Encephalitis.
This discovery, they say, will now help them approach this disease therapeutically and protect future cases from irrecoverable damages.
Japanese Encephalitis (JE), commonly known as brain fever, is one of the prevalent mosquito-borne encephalitis in India and entire South East Asia with 30,000-50,000 cases reported annually.
Besides resulting in thousands of fatalities each year, JE virus infection causes prominent neurological sequal in approximately one-third of the survivors.
Children are more vulnerable targets of this virus. Post treatment, the good recovery group commonly encounter psychiatric problems, which include mental retardation, learning disabilities, speech and movement disorders and behavioural abnormalities.
"At our lab we have found that the JE virus damages the brain in two ways. It not only kills brain cells but at the same time prevents the birth of new cells from neural stem/progenitor cells (NPC) thus depleting the NPC pool in the brain," said Dr Anirban Basu, researcher with NBRC.
"This happens even after medication. And this finally leads to neurological damage that may either lead to paralysis, speech difficulty, involuntary movements disorders in people who have survived the disease," Basu said.
"Knowing the mechanism, we can start to approach this therapeutically," he said, adding "this indicates that we might eventually treat this form of neurological and psychiatric problems by either ramping up brain repair or protecting the repair mechanism."
Children are at a dynamic stage of brain development, hence infection at this stage can have devastating effects on mental functions later in life.
The brain fever has been mainly prevalent in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
"Our study has tried to explore how JEV infection leads to development of long-term cognitive deficits in the survivors," says Basu.
The former director of National Institute of Mental Helath and NeuroSciences, Dr M Gouri Devi said: "With this discovery there will be a new way of loooking at JE. Now work will begin on introducing drugs either to lessen the impact of the virus or protect the stem cells."
It's the first time that a mosquito-borne virus has ever been shown to affect neural stem cells, Basu said. Neural stem/progenitor cells are the saviours of the brain following any insult or infection and via the process of neurogenesis help the recovery process. These cells have the ability to self-renew over lifetime and generate both neurons and glia, which make up the CNS.