Flu medication cures brain injuries

According to a study, flu medication helps with traumatic brain injury

12.03.2012

The cure of brain injuries can be positively influenced by the flu medication amantadine. An international team of researchers from Germany, Denmark and the US has found that trauma in craniocerebral trauma patients heals faster when they take amantadine.

In severe traumatic brain injuries, amantadine has been prescribed concomitantly in the past, but without scientific studies proving the effect of the drug on traumatic brain injury patients, scientists write in the journal „The New England Journal of Medicine“. For the first time, the researchers led by Joseph T. Giacino of the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute at Seton Hall University in New Jersey (USA) and John Whyte, professor of rehabilitation medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia (USA), have a clear-cut effect in their study Flu medication scientifically proven in severe brain injuries.

Functional recovery of the brain studied
The international team of scientists has studied the effect of flu medication on 184 patients „in a vegetative state of minimal consciousness“ or four to 16 weeks before a traumatic brain injury followed by vegetative coma examined. To this end, the average 36-year-old volunteers were divided into two groups: a control group in which placebo preparations were distributed and a group that received amantadine. Over a period of four weeks, the study participants took their medications or placebo, and two more weeks were considered „washout“ considered, report Giacino and Whyte. Both after four weeks and following the washout phase, the researchers used the so-called „Disability Rating Scale“ Functional recovery of a brain. The result: the subjects in the amantadine group recovered significantly better than in the control group.

Flu medication speeds up the healing of the brain
The first four week study showed that the condition of the craniocerebrum trauma patients in the amantadine group was much better than in the placebo group, the neurologists write in their recent article. Thus, the subjects who took the flu medication were able to answer simple yes-no questions or perform simple instructions much more frequently than the patients in the control group. The participants in the amantadine group were also better on the motor, according to the researchers. Some have been able to exercise coordinated actions, such as grabbing a spoon or even brushing their hair. However, the positive effects of the washout phase and the functional recovery of the brain after six weeks gradually leveled off between the control group and the amantadine group, said Whyte and Giacino, US researchers.

The effect of amantadine on traumatic brain injury was discovered accidentally
Thus, amantadine accelerates the rate of functional recovery in traumatic brain injury patients only during active treatment. However, this offer „This is the result of hope, whose situation is described as hopeless in many places. "According to Joseph Giacino, for those affected, especially their families, the flu remedy could be the straw they cling to their expectations, because a lack of effective medication is a successful treatment For example, physicians also came across the effect of the flu medication by chance years ago because of the lack of available drugs for the treatment of traumatic brain injury patients „Intuition and logic“ on amantadine, without corresponding studies on the effects of the flu medication were available, reports John Whyte. The effect has convinced and so doctors have been using amantadine for years in the treatment of severe brain injuries, said the neurologist.

Flu medicine versatile
In the mid-1960s, amantadine was approved as a flu medicine, but it quickly became effective in other diseases as well. Several studies have shown that the flu medicine can also alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, after which amantadine has also been approved for the treatment of Parkinson's. From a neurological point of view, the effect of amantadine on the dopamine system is of particular interest. The messenger substance dopamine, also known as happiness hormone, also plays an important role in motor coordination and mental alertness. The way in which the flu medication accelerates the functional recovery of the brain after a craniocerebral trauma, the researchers could not yet clarify in their current investigation. For now they were important to discuss, „whether we treat patients with a beneficial, a useless or even a harmful drug“, explained Whyte.

Long-term effect of the flu medication not yet investigated
The study by the international research team leaves many questions open, especially with regard to the long-term effects of the flu medication. It also remains unclear whether all traumatic brain injury patients can equally benefit from the treatment, or whether the positive effect only in particularly severe brain injuries. To get to the bottom of these and other critical issues, the researchers are planning additional long-term studies on the use of the flu medicine amantadine in the treatment of „Post-traumatic disorders of consciousness“. However, with a large number of setbacks in the field, the current results are very encouraging. In addition, researchers say they could make a significant contribution to the development of new treatments for severe brain injuries. (Fp)

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Concussion with long-term consequences

Picture credits: Dieter Schütz