It may be possible to partially reverse brain damage in premature babies, according to research to be published on Thursday.
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The US researchers led by Vittorio Gallo, whose paper appears in Nature, did experiments with mice to replicate the effect of premature birth by reducing their access to oxygen. They then stimulated certain brain receptors to compensate for the damage from hypoxia.
The research was welcomed in Australia as a huge step forward.
Due to poor lung development, more than half of very preterm infants – those born before 32 weeks of pregnancy – were born with diffuse white matter injury to the brain.
Neonatal specialist at Canberra Hospital, Zsuzsoka Kecskes, said it was an exciting development.
"It defines a bit more where the lack of oxygen can cause damage and how we might be able to prevent it in the far future," she said.
But she cautioned the method used by the researchers – stimulating a receptor – was also known to be associated with cancer in adults. Dr Kecskes, ACT 2014 Australian of the Year, said a baby's brain underwent huge steps in development in the first 32 weeks.
"If a baby is born before 32 weeks, we essentially interrupt the normal brain development," she said. "On top of that, the babies undergo frequent periods where the oxygen content in their blood drops.
"Because of the way the brain receives nutrition, in periods where there is lack of blood flow or oxygen to the brain, the damage that occurs is in the white matter.
"The white matter is very important for co-ordination so, when these children grow up, they may have cerebral palsy or mental impairment or blindness, but much more common are more subtle deficiencies.
"So they may be a bit unco-ordinated, they're clumsy, they don't walk that well and they may have mild intellectual disability as well, in addition to ADHD or autism."
She said the US researchers conducted many experiments with mice to replicate the brain damage that occurred with premature babies.
The mice were subjected to reduced oxygen for several days to induce hypoxia. The researchers also found that blocking a key receptor associated with white matter development in the brain caused a similar effect to hypoxia but stimulating it could reverse the effects.
"What they're shown is, if you block this receptor, that causes as much brain damage as if you've made the mice hypoxic," she said.
"However, if they stimulate the receptor, the effects of the lack of oxygen are not so evident and are potentially reversed.
"The hypoxic mice were clumsy, the mice that had the receptor blocked were clumsy and the mice that had the receptor stimulated were behaving as the control group of normal mice did.
"So this is very exciting . . . it's a huge step forward in science but let's see if this is feasible. We need to study the long-term effects and ensure such treatment does not cause other harm. We know if this receptor is stimulated, it is associated with some types of cancer."