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A hormone used to boost athletic prowess may also help people make a speedy recovery from stroke.
Auckland University research presented at an international brain conference in Melbourne shows lab rodents injected with rat growth hormone after having a stroke completely recovered movement within seven days.
The findings are the first to suggest that controversial human forms of growth hormone could help sufferers make a faster recovery.
Growth hormone is not normally produced in the brain but research has shown that it often occurs after injury as a self-protective mechanism.
University researcher Praneeti Pathipati and her colleagues injected the hormone in the rats to boost the level naturally produced after the stroke.
"Using animal models, we have tested the effect of growth hormone injected directly into the brains of laboratory rats for six weeks starting four days after a stroke," Ms Pathipati said.
"Remarkably, the rats regained 100 per cent of movement function, within seven days - significantly faster than untreated animals."
Ms Pathipati told the World Congress of Neuroscience that further research was needed, but it showed potential for human trials testing human growth hormone on stroke victims.
Currently, stroke is treated with blood-thinning agents that must be applied within two to three hours of the event to dissolve clots and restore blood flow to the affected region of the brain.
"If it were possible to translate the animal study into a human clinical setting, it would allow people who have suffered a stroke to undergo treatment with human growth hormone days or weeks after the event."
- AAP
