Some brain cells are naturally protected against a stroke – and now we know why.
Jack Mellor at the University of Bristol, UK, exposed slices of rats' hippocampi to the low-oxygen conditions typical of a stroke. Neurons in the hippocampi known to resist stroke damage acted differently from a population of vulnerable cells: they removed receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate from their cell surface, reducing their sensitivity to the chemical. Glutamate floods the brain during a stroke.
Whether this finding could lead to the development of a treatment for stroke victims is an open question, says Mellor. The main problem is that the receptors are critical to normal brain function.
"However, if we can find a way to cause vulnerable nerve cells to remove their glutamate receptors from the cell surface our data would suggest that this would protect them," he says.
