New diterpene-based drug achieves functional neuronal regeneration after brain injury

Researchers from the University of Seville and the University of Cadiz, coordinated by the professors of Physiology Pedro Núñez-Abades and Carmen Castro, have demonstrated that the use of diterpenes facilitates repopulation with new neurons in brain regions damaged by traumatic injuries. This discovery is particular significant because the new cells are mature functional neurons, which are integrated into the neural circuits of the damaged area and develop functional characteristics identical to the neurons eliminated by the injury.

This important finding, published in the international journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy, is the result of a preclinical study in experimental animals, highlighting the pharmacological role diterpenes could play as a potential therapy for repairing brain damage.

Brain injuries can have very serious consequences that are often irreversible. Loss of neurons can affect a variety of functions, from movement to cognition, leading to personality changes or even more serious conditions. Finding treatments to help regenerate damaged brain tissue is a major challenge for science today.

In this search for possible novel treatments, the researchers Pedro Núñez-Abades and Carmen Castro have been working in close collaboration with the group from the University of Cadiz Department of Organic Chemistry, led by Rosario Hernández-Galán. This partnership has made it possible to identify natural products that could serve as therapies to regenerate damaged tissue, preventing loss of function.

In this new study in experimental animals, researchers have shown that, after injury, new neuron production is naturally activated from neural stem cells in the areas of the brain responsible for their generation. However, these cells do not move to the areas affected by the injury. By treating mice that have suffered a brain injury using diterpenes as drugs, the newly generated neurons are able to move to the damaged region, where they can repopulate the tissue that has lost neurons due to the injury.

In other words, thanks to treatment with this molecule, not only does the damaged region of the animals’ brains receive new neurons from areas that still have the capacity to generate them, but also these new neurons are fully functional and similar to the damaged ones, thereby restoring the original neuronal circuits and producing functional recovery of the deficits associated with the injury. The study also identifies a new therapeutic target on which to act to generate new treatments: a molecule produced by immune system cells in response to injury that could be responsible for attracting these neurons to the injury.

Although this study was carried out in mouse models and is not yet applicable to the human brain, it opens up the possibility that, “in the future, after carrying out more trials to check the drug has the same effect in humans and to rule out its toxicity, it could be used in regenerative therapies to treat brain injuries.”