New research undertaken by Dr. Shai Efrati of Tel Aviv University, and some fellow scientists, has revealed that oxygen treatment may be extremely beneficial for patients with brain damage.
Dr Efrati conducted his study on 74 post-stroke patients – whose condition had stopped improving – and gave them hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).
This treatment increases the levels of oxygen in the human body to up to ten times higher than usually observed. The team believed this might have positive effects since the oxygen could awaken dormant neurons and restore neurological function.
As they had anticipated, after two months of HBOT, there was a visible increase in neuronal activity. Some patients saw a reversal of paralysis and experienced increased sensation. Others even found using language easier than they had done before participating in the study.
Dr Efrati explains that although the brain uses 20% of the body’s oxygen, only five to ten percent of the brain’s neurons are able to work at any one time with this amount of energy. By increasing levels of oxygen, the brain is able to heal better because it has more energy to spare.
The research largely focused on people who had lived with the symptoms of their stroke for about three years, which would suggest that perhaps the window of opportunity for brain healing closes after a certain amount of time has passed since the injury.
However, the doctor states that he has seen individuals’ brain injuries improve with HBOT up to 20 years after the initial damage was caused. One of the other scientists involved in the research, Professor Ben-Jacob, says this shows “beyond any doubt” that “many aspects of the brain remain plastic into adulthood”.
