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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
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Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims
#13276833 - 10/01/10 07:11 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims October 1, 2010 - nbcmontana.com
MISSOULA, Mont. -- A University of Montana researcher thinks he might be on to a big breakthrough when it comes to brain injuries and strokes. He's studying methamphetamine and how it affects healing in the brain.
Dave Poulsen, a research assistant professor hasn't been spending much time in the lab recently, but that changed when his research partner stumbled onto something big.
Poulsen says "We intended to start out to look at the neurotoxic effects or potential damaging effects of methamphetamine particularly as it related to stroke."
What they found shocked them. A small dose of methamphetamine can treat and even reverse damage from brain injuries. The research even shows low doses can help prevent brain damage from strokes.
Now he's getting some help from the U.S. Government. The Department of Defense gave the UM researcher $1.5 million to study the effects of low doses of methamphetamine when treating traumatic brain injuries. Poulsen says the money will be used to help find the optimal dose and determine how long after injury treatment would still be effective.
Right now a person has to get to a hospital within three or four hours to take a drug that breaks up blood clots that cause strokes, but after that there isn't much a doctor can do. If that drug is taken too late, it can cause more harm than good. Plus it doesn't do anything to stop the wave of damage that is associated with strokes. There's nothing professionals can do for someone who suffers a severe brain injury. But Poulsen thinks controled methamphetamine doses could change that. If his research is right, the low-dose meth could reverse some damage done by those who have received a traumatic brain injury.
Poulsen says military planners are looking for a drug that can negate the effects of energy blasts from explosions for soldiers in the field. For many of them medical treatment is hours away. Poulsen says "Having something in the field that a paramedic could deliver would hugely improve the outcome, potentially improve the outcome of people after a traumatic brain injury or a stroke. This could have just as great an impact in a battlefield setting."
He likes what he sees so far from test results on lab animals. He's studied animals with brain injuries versus those without. And says "In those animals that received a severe brain injury but received the methamphetamine treatment, within two to three weeks of the injury, you really couldn't differentiate those animals from the ones who had never received an injury."
This groundbreaking research will next be tried in hospitals. Human trials could give some patients new hope when they once would have a long road of recovery in front of them, if any recovery at all.
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Dickhead
2 Times


Registered: 01/24/05
Posts: 28,769
Loc: groin
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: veggie]
#13276895 - 10/01/10 07:29 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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THIS IS AWESOME.
A time and a place for everything, It still would seem.
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TTT
Cultivate the inside


Registered: 08/07/06
Posts: 4,340
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: Dickhead]
#13277394 - 10/01/10 09:41 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Nearly all drugs really do have some for of medicinal value.
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist


Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 48,392
Last seen: 3 days, 6 hours
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: veggie]
#13277413 - 10/01/10 09:48 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Dickhead
2 Times


Registered: 01/24/05
Posts: 28,769
Loc: groin
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#13277644 - 10/01/10 10:37 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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I agree, essentially.
Decriminalize all personal drug possession... I say.
The only action I believe is even POSSIBLY just and proper for possession or any drug would be a manditory addiction evaluation and an OFFER of state sponsored rehabilitation treatment including welfare eligibility while following a treatment program.
I saw a program about a younger man 17 maybe who suffered from an extremely rare and debilitating condition of exhaustion which had him sleeping 90% of his time. He had no life AT ALL. Meth was prescribed to him as an extreme measure; but it WORKED. If I recall correctly however, something or someone got in the middle of it, afraid about the boy becoming an addict. Which obviously would happen in all honesty. But what other choice would you have? No life, or some life. I would choose some life.
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BirdsIView
Mr. Helms

Registered: 07/19/07
Posts: 736
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: TTT]
#13278033 - 10/02/10 01:03 AM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
TTT said: Nearly all drugs really do have some for of medicinal value.
it's funny because the other day I was thinking the same thing except when I came to meth I couldn't think of anything. I figured in the end that there had to be some benefit to it even if we don't know it and here it is possibly.
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Diacetylmentlegen
Gentleman



Registered: 06/13/10
Posts: 267
Loc: Ireland
Last seen: 11 years, 10 months
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: BirdsIView]
#13278371 - 10/02/10 04:33 AM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Except Tobacco. That's just decay in plant form.
-------------------- "When I recall it and when I recall various other symptoms... I think the simplest explanation is... that I had these experiences, that they were real... and that they took place outside time." - Christopher Mayhew
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Hemlock



Registered: 10/20/09
Posts: 284
Last seen: 7 years, 2 months
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Re: Methamphetamine Provides Hope For Stroke And Brain Injury Victims [Re: Diacetylmentlegen]
#13279035 - 10/02/10 10:03 AM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diacetylmentlegen said: Except Tobacco. That's just decay in plant form.
Oh really?
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