Research: OVERCOMING NEGLECT30 January 2005 Drug treatment may help people whose vision and attention have been affected following a stroke. |
|
When people suffer a stroke, they may have problems viewing things on one side of space – the side opposite that affected by the stroke. Dr Masud Husain and colleagues have discovered that this 'hemispatial neglect' can be improved by treatment with guanfacine.
Guanfacine has previously been used to treat high blood pressure. It also acts on the brain, boosting the activity of neurons that use noradrenaline as a neurotransmitter.
Dr Husain, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, tested the drug in people who had damage to the visual areas on the right side of their brains, and suffered left hemispatial neglect. The drug helped them find stimuli to their left, suggesting that this kind of drug could be beneficial to individuals with impaired vision and attention after stroke.
External links
- Malhotra PA et al. Noradrenergic modulation of space exploration in visual neglect. Ann Neurol 2005 (Epub ahead of print).