Researchers are working on a pill that could allow patients’ brains to recover from a traumatic injury or stroke, defying conventional thinking that the brain cannot regenerate following such a traumatic event.
As the New York Times reports, researchers previously discovered a gene that codes for a receptor called CCR5, which has been found in experiments to suppress lab mice’s ability to learn and remember.
University of California head of neurology Thomas Carmichael and his colleagues found that the receptor flooded the human brain following a stroke or other brain injury, and started to wonder whether it was hindering performance beyond the acute physical damage from a stroke or injury.
Mice, which lacked the gene due to a natural mutation, recovered faster and more completely from stroke, leading Carmichael to wonder whether the same could be true for humans.
Intriguingly, an HIV treatment developed by Pfizer called maraviroc, which was approved by the FDA in 2007, seemed to mimic this mutation (the CCR5 receptor is also known to let the HIV virus enter cells.)
Since then, Carmichael has led new efforts to test whether the drug could allow patients who have suffered a stroke or traumatic head injury to rewire their brains, or at least aid in the process.
In a paper published in the journal Cell earlier this year, Carmichael and his colleagues detailed how the absence of the CCR5 gene affects brain function, and how maraviroc could play a role in recovery.
“This is the first time that a human gene has been linked to a better recovery from stroke,” he said in a statement at the time. “Our discovery offers exciting potential for improving patients’ health and enhancing their quality of life.”
“We found that maraviroc blocked CCR5 in mice and boosted the animals’ recovery from traumatic brain injury and stroke,” he added. “The big question left to answer was whether eliminating CCR5 would produce the same results in people.”
But Maraviroc is not a perfect drug, as Carmichael told the NYT, thanks to a limited ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. It could also take many years for the drug, alongside other candidates, to be approved for the treatment of brain injury patients by the FDA.
An ongoing randomized placebo-controlled trial across Canada is set to complete two years from now, at which point, we’ll know more about whether the drug can effectively improve our brain’s ability to rehabilitate following a traumatic event.
Debra McVean, a participant interviewed by the NYT, who had suffered a stroke in March 2024 due to a blood clot in an artery in her neck. She’s recently started noticing more mobility in the fingers on her left hand, and is slowly regaining the ability to lift weights with her arms and make herself a cup of coffee.
But it’s still too early to tell whether her recovery is being aided by the drug — as it will remain unclear whether she’s indeed taking maraviroc or a placebo until the trial wraps in two years.
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