Eighty-three patients received NMT in conjunction with other rehabilitation therapies, such as physio, speech, language and/or occupational therapies to accelerate their recovery. The therapy is also designed to help patients effectively manage the emotional demands of life immediately after a stroke. It was delivered by NMT provider Chroma in partnership with Imperial Health Charity and Imperial Stroke Services. The nine-month project has seen improved rehabilitation and patient outcomes as well as increased staff and carer use of music as a ward-based activity.

Once further developed, this NeuroD1-based gene therapy could potentially be used to treat stroke, researchers say.  "The current treatment for stroke has a narrow time window, typically within a few hours after the occurrence of stroke," said lead author Yuchen Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State.

Almost a million people in America have Parkinson’s but a group of 11 influential organisations believe funding for research into the disease is woefully short.

Next week they will convene in Washington D.C. and share their ideas and concerns with elected government officials.

The Parkinson's Foundation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) and nine other Parkinson’s organisations will join leading Parkinson’s experts and advocates at the 2019 Parkinson’s Policy Forum.

The body is funding a nationwide preclinical trial platform designed to test novel treatments for acute ischemic stroke in rodents. Seven labs will work together, as part of the Stroke Preclinical Assessment Network (SPAN), to employ clinical research practices while assessing the effectiveness of six potential neuroprotective therapies in reducing ischemic brain injury. The network will be funded with US$4m over the next three years. “Our primary goal is to identify the most promising treatments for testing in patients with clinical trials,” said Walter J. Koroshetz, director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke which supports SPAN.

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a magnetically steerable, thread-like robot that can actively glide through narrow, winding pathways, such as those found in the brain. In the future, this robotic thread may enable doctors to remotely guide the robot through a patient’s brain vessels to quickly treat blockages and lesions; according to an MIT press release. Xuanhe Zhao, associate professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, says: “If acute stroke can be treated within the first 90 minutes or so, patients’ survival rates could increase significantly.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has awarded nearly US$5m to Dr. Evan Y. Snyder, a professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys research facility in San Diego. The funding will allow Snyder to complete pre-investigational new drug-enabling studies, a step toward securing US FDA approval of a human trial for neural stem cells as a potential treatment for newborns who experience oxygen and blood-flow deprivation during birth. The resultant perinatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HII) can cause cerebral palsy and other permanent neurological disorders.

Researchers at Nazarbayev University and the National Laboratory Astana, based in the capital city of Nur-Sultan, are studying how radiofrequency electromagnetic fields could be used in Alzheimer’s disease therapy. Their focus in on a frequency of 918 MHz because it is commonly used in mobile phones. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of age-related dementia, is usually characterised by loss of memory and dramatic changes in character and behaviour, eventually leading to an inability to carry out normal daily life activities.

Research from UT Southwestern Medical Center shows patients with Type 2 diabetes who have an acute ischemic stroke have equally favourable results when their blood sugar levels are controlled with intermittent insulin shots compared with continuous insulin treatment using an IV. The study is the first evidence-based validation of glucose-control guidelines for blood sugar management in patients with hyperglycaemia after stroke, researchers say. Dr Christiana Hall, associate professor of neurology and neurotherapeutics at UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, says: “The study upholds the most common standard of care practice utilised over the years. It’s what our guidelines recommend, even though we never had strong data to support them.