2015 Participants
Jun Shang Poon
An individual is more likely to suffer a stroke around the time of birth than at any other life stage except advanced old age and it is a significant cause of cerebral palsy. Early brain lesions can lead to aberrant development of a movement disorder over many months and years. Thus we propose that interventions to treat cerebral palsy should be initiated as soon as possible in order to restore the nervous system to the correct developmental path. We are testing this idea by modelling a stroke in baby rats and then treating the lesion by early injection of neural stem cells to the injured brain to find out whether the transplanted cells can survive and contribute to the repair of the movement controlling areas.
Project Supervisor: Dr Gavin Clowry, Institute of Neuroscience
Funding Source: Newcastle University