The addictive drug that ruins lives in horrible ways actually protected neurons when injected after strokes into the brains of rats and gerbils in a Missoula laboratory.
“I didn't believe it at first,” Dave Poulsen said Friday. “We thought that, based on the literature, it was going to make the effect of stroke worse. We were kind of surprised.”
Poulsen cautioned that testing is far from complete. Meth won't be a panacea for stroke sufferers any time soon.
“It's very important that everybody understands that,” he said.
He also knows the findings will raise eyebrows when they hit the press.
“I'm scared,” Poulsen said frankly. “On the one hand, there's probably a group that wants everybody to understand that meth is really bad stuff, and it is. Any drug when it's abused is bad stuff. But the reality is everything is toxic depending on its levels of use.”
A year ago, Poulsen was helping other researchers study the effect of meth on the lungs when the unexpected trend arose.
It's been shown that the drug makes brain damage worse when administered before a stroke. But it seems the opposite is true when infused afterward.
Poulsen's team first tested rat hippocampus, the part of the brain used for memory and learning. Thin slices were kept in cultures for nine days, then deprived of oxygen and glucose for 90 minutes to mimic stroke conditions.
A special red dye was used to reveal the damage to neurons, cells that serve as the primary functional units of the brain and nervous system. There are an estimated 100 billion neu
Time and again, neuronal damage proved to be less in the stroke slices than the non-stroke slices.
“Don't ask me how. We are trying to figure that out,” Poulsen said. “But methamphetamine is clearly protective.”
The dosage is critical. A small amount of meth works. Higher doses increase the damage.
The scientists also found that low doses were effective for up to 16 hours after a stroke.
“This is significant, since the current leading clot-busting drug used for strokes - tissue plasminogen activator - must be administered within three hours,” he said.
In cooperation with Michael Babcock of Montana State University, the Missoula researchers then tested live gerbils in what Poulsen described as “a quick pilot study.”
Untreated gerbils that had strokes became twice as active and agitated as normal in the ensuing 24 to 48 hours. But those that received a low dose of meth were calmer.
When, after three weeks, the brains of the gerbils were dissected, the neurons of those treated with meth were as intact as the non-stroke animals. The ones that weren't treated showed profound neuronal loss.
The difference, said Poulsen, was “stark.”
Poulsen's team presented an abstract of their findings to the Society of Neuroscience in May, one of some 14,000 submitted. It was among 700 that the society chose to “put into a news release package.”
Hence the news release this week from UM, just before the Atlanta convention starts Saturday.
“We hate to put this stuff out before we have it published,” Poulsen said. “We're trying to finish up some experiments and get things nailed down to publish. But I figured it was going to get released (next week) anyway.”
The next step, Poulsen said, is to “go back and look at very rigorous rat models” to see if the meth treatment affects the flow of oxygen and glucose typically lost in a stroke.
The scientists will seek grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to continue the studies.
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com
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