Tag Archive for: hypoxia

newborn baby

Study suggests chronic hypoxia delays cardiac maturation in CHD

newborn baby

Every year, nearly 40,000 babies are born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) — the leading cause of birth defect-associated infant illness and death.

Every year, nearly 40,000 babies are born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) — the leading cause of birth defect-associated infant illness and death. An event that may contribute to cyanotic CHD is the lack of oxygen, known as hypoxia, before and after birth, impacting gene expression and cardiac function that delay postnatal cardiac maturation, according to a new pre-clinical model led by researchers at Children’s National Hospital.

Single ventricle, transposition of the great arteries, truncus arteriosus and severe forms of tetralogy of Fallot, such cyanotic congenital heart diseases have lower circulating blood oxygen levels. The lack of oxygen in the blood begins prenatally and continues after birth until definitive repair, suggesting a delay on cardiac maturation.

There is little research on the underpinnings that explain the lack of oxygen’s effects on the developing heart, which could help inform adequate therapies in the pediatric population to promote cardiovascular health across the lifetime. The researchers developed the first pre-clinical model that explores the effects of chronic hypoxia in perinatal and postnatal stages on the developing heart under conditions seen in cyanotic CHD.

“To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study to perform complete gene expression arrays on animals after perinatal hypoxia,” said Jennifer Romanowicz, senior noninvasive imaging fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and lead author of the study. “Not only did these studies allow us to determine the effects of hypoxia on heart development, but the detailed results of our study will be available to other researchers to independently address other questions about perinatal hypoxia and heart development.”

The study published in the American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physiology suggests that chronic lack of oxygen alters the electrical properties of heart tissue, called the electrophysiological substrate, and the contractile apparatus, a muscle composed of proteins that control cardiac contraction. Multiple genes involved with the contractile apparatus were expressed differently in the non-human subjects.

“What was remarkable was that most abnormalities normalized after the animals recovered in normal oxygen levels,” said Romanowicz. “This is an optimistic sign that early repair of cyanotic congenital heart disease may allow the heart to finish development.”

The researchers placed pregnant non-human subjects in hypoxic chambers starting on embryonic day 16, mimicking the second trimester in humans. The same subjects gave birth in the hypoxic chambers, and the newborns were kept there until postnatal day eight when the heart muscle maturation is nearly complete. To understand how human infants recover with normalized oxygen levels after surgical repair of cyanotic CHD, the researchers moved hypoxic subjects to normal oxygen conditions for recovery and tested again at postnatal day 30.

“Next steps include using a pre-clinical model of cyanotic congenital heart disease that more accurately represents human neonatal physiology,” said Devon Guerrelli, Ph.D. candidate at Children’s National. We plan to work with the cardiac surgery team at Children’s National to investigate changes in the myocardium due to hypoxia in pediatric patients who are undergoing surgical repair.”

Nikki Posnack, Ph.D., principal investigator at Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and Nobuyuki Ishibashi, M.D., director of Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory at Children’s National, led and guided the team of researchers involved in the study.

structure of EGFR

Study suggests EGFR inhibition reverses alterations induced by hypoxia

structure of EGFR

The study suggests that specific molecular responses modulated by EGFR (seen here) may be targeted as a therapeutic strategy for HX injury in the neonatal brain.

Hypoxic (HX) encephalopathy is a major cause of death and neurodevelopmental disability in newborns. While it is known that decreased oxygen and energy failure in the brain lead to neuronal cell death, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of HX-induced neuronal and glial cell damage are still largely undefined.

Panagiotis Kratimenos, M.D., and colleagues from the Center for Neuroscience Research at the Children’s National Research Institute, discovered increased expression of activated-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in affected cortical areas of neonates with HX and decided to further investigate the functional role of EGFR-related signaling pathways in the cellular and molecular changes induced by HX in the cerebral cortex.

The researchers found that HX-induced activation of EGFR and Ca2+/calmodulin kinase IV (CaMKIV) caused cell death and pathological alterations in neurons and glia. EGFR blockade inhibited CaMKIV activation, attenuated neuronal loss, increased oligodendrocyte proliferation and reversed HX-induced astrogliosis.

The researchers also performed, for the first time, high-throughput transcriptomic analysis of the cortex to define molecular responses to HX and to uncover genes specifically involved in EGFR signaling in brain injury. Their results indicate that specific molecular responses modulated by EGFR may be targeted as a therapeutic strategy for HX injury in the neonatal brain.

This study defines many new exciting avenues of scientific exploration to further elucidate the beneficial impact of EGFR blockade on perinatal brain injury at the cellular and molecular levels. This analysis could potentially result in the identification of new therapeutic targets associated with EGFR signaling in the developing mammalian brain that are linked with specific long-term abnormalities caused by perinatal brain injury.

Children’s National researchers who contributed to this study include Panagiotis Kratimenos, M.D., Ioannis Koutroulis, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., Susan Knoblach, Ph.D., Payal Banerjee, Surajit Bhattacharya, Ph.D., Maria Almira-Suarez, M.D., and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D.

Read the full article in iScience.

Study authors Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., Joseph Abbah, B.Pharm., Ph.D., Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D. and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D.

Children’s perinatal hypoxia research lauded

Study authors Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., Joseph Abbah, B.Pharm., Ph.D., Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D. and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D.

Study authors Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., Joseph Abbah, B.Pharm., Ph.D., Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D. and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D.

Chronic sublethal hypoxia is associated with locomotor miscoordination and long-term cerebellar learning deficits in a clinically relevant model of neonatal brain injury, according to a study led by Children’s National Health System researchers published by Nature Communications. Using high-tech optical and physiological methods that allow researchers to turn neurons on and off and an advanced behavioral tool, the research team found that Purkinje cells fire significantly less often after injury due to perinatal hypoxia.

The research team leveraged a fully automated, computerized apparatus – an Erasmus Ladder – to test experimental models’ adaptive cerebellar locomotor learning skills, tracking their missteps as well as how long it took the models to learn the course.

The research project, led by Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., a Children’s postdoctoral research fellow, was honored with a F1000 prime “very good rating.” The Children’s research team used both quantitative behavior tests and electrophysiological assays, “a valuable and objective platform for functional assessment of targeted therapeutics in neurological disorders,” according to the recommendation on a digital forum in which the world’s leading scientists and clinicians highlight the best articles published in the field.

Calling the Erasmus Ladder an “elegant” behavioral system, Richard Lu, Ph.D., and Kalen Berry write that the Children’s National Health System research team “revealed locomotor behavior and cerebellar learning deficits, and further utilized multielectrode recording/optogenetics approaches to define critical pathophysiological features, such as defects in Purkinje cell firing after neonatal brain injury.”

Lu, Beatrice C. Lampkin Endowed Chair in Cancer Epigenetics, and Berry, an associate faculty member in the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute, both at Cincinnati Children’s, note that the Children’s results “suggest that GABA signaling may represent a potential therapeutic target for hypoxia-related neonatal brain injury that, if provided at the correct time during development post-injury, could offer lifelong improvements.”

In addition to Sathyanesan, Children’s co-authors include Co-Lead Author, Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D., and Joseph Abbah, both of Children’s Center for Neuroscience Research, and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D., Children’s Chief Research Officer and the study’s senior author.

Research covered in this story was supported by the Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center under award number U54HD090257.

Nobuyuki Ishibashi

Cortical dysmaturation in congenital heart disease

Nobuyuki Ishibashi

On Jan. 4, 2019, Nobuyuki Ishibashi, M.D., the director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory and an investigator with the Center for Neuroscience Research at Children’s National Health System, published a review in Trends in Neurosciences about the mechanisms of cortical dysmaturation, or disturbances in cortical development, that can occur in children born with congenital heart disease (CHD). By understanding the early-life impact and relationship between cardiac abnormalities and cortical neuronal development, Dr. Ishibashi and the study authors hope to influence strategies for neonatal neuroprotection, mitigating the risk for developmental delays among CHD patients.

Dr. Ishibashi answers questions about this review and CHD-neurodevelopmental research:

  1. Tell us more about your research. Why did you choose to study these interactions in this patient population?

My research focuses on studying how CHD and neonatal cardiac surgery affect the rapidly-developing brain. Many children with CHD, particularly the most complex anomalies, suffer from important behavioral anomalies and neurodevelopmental delays after cardiac surgery. As a surgeon scientist, I want to optimize treatment strategy and develop a new standard of care that will reduce neurodevelopmental impairment in our patients.

  1. How does this study fit into your larger body of work? What are a few take-home messages from this paper?

Our team and other laboratories have recently identified a persistent perinatal neurogenesis that targets the frontal cortex – the brain area responsible for higher-order cognitive functions. The main message from this article is that further understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying cortical development and dysmaturation will likely help to identify novel strategies to treat and improve outcomes in our patients suffering from intellectual and behavioral disabilities.

  1. What do you want pediatricians and researchers to know about this study? Why is it important right now?

Although the hospital mortality risk is greatly reduced, children with complex CHD frequently display subsequent neurological disabilities affecting intellectual function, memory, executive function, speech and language, gross and fine motor skills and visuospatial functions. In addition to the impact of the neurological morbidity on the patients themselves, the toll on families and society is immense. Therefore it is crucial to determine the causes of altered brain maturation in CHD.

  1. How do you envision this research influencing future studies and pediatric health outcomes? As a researcher, how will you proceed?

In this article we placed special emphasis on the need for well-designed preclinical studies to define disturbances in cortical neurogenesis due to perinatal brain injury. I believe that further study of the impact of hypoxemia on brain development is of broad relevance — not just for children with congenital heart disease, but for other populations where intellectual and behavioral dysfunctions are a source of chronic morbidity, such as survivors of premature birth.

  1. What discoveries do you envision being at the forefront of this field?

One of the important questions is: During which developmental period, prenatal or postnatal, is the brain most sensitive to developmental and behavioral disabilities associated with hypoxemia? Future experimental models will help us study key effects of congenital cortical development anomalies on brain development in children with CHD.

  1. What impact could this research make? What’s the most striking finding and how do you think it will influence the field?

Although cortical neurogenesis at fetal and adult stages has been widely studied, the development of the human frontal cortex during the perinatal period has only recently received greater attention as a result of new identification of ongoing postnatal neurogenesis in the region responsible for important intellectual and behavioral functions. Children’s National is very excited with the discoveries because it has opened new opportunities that may lead to regeneration and repair of the dysmature cortex. If researchers identify ways to restore endogenous neurogenic abilities after birth, the risk of neurodevelopment disabilities and limitations could be greatly reduced.

  1. Is there anything else you would like to add that we didn’t ask you about? What excites you about this research?

In this article we highlight an urgent need to create a truly translational area of research in CHD-induced brain injury through further exploration and integration of preclinical models. I’m very excited about the highly productive partnerships we developed within the Center for Neuroscience Research at Children’s National, led by an internationally-renowned developmental neuroscientist, Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D., who is a co-senior author of this article. Because of our collaboration, my team has successfully utilized sophisticated and cutting-edge neuroscience techniques to study brain development in children born with CHD. To determine the causes of altered brain maturation in congenital heart disease and ultimately improve neurological function, we believe that a strong unity between cardiovascular and neuroscience research must be established.

Additional study authors include Camille Leonetti, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow with the Center for Neuroscience Research and Children’s National Heart Institute, and Stephen Back, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health and Science University.

The research was supported by multiple grants and awards from the National Institutes of Health, inclusive of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (RO1HL139712), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (1RO1NS054044, R37NS045737, R37NS109478), the National Institute on Aging (1RO1AG031892-01) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54HD090257).

Additional support for this review was awarded by the American Heart Association (17GRNT33370058) and the District of Columbia Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, which is supported through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development program grant 1U54HD090257.

toddler on a playground

Perinatal hypoxia associated with long-term cerebellar learning deficits and Purkinje cell misfiring

toddler on a playground

The type of hypoxia that occurs with preterm birth is associated with locomotor miscoordination and long-term cerebellar learning deficits but can be partially alleviated with an off-the-shelf medicine, according to a study using a preclinical model.

Oxygen deprivation associated with preterm birth leaves telltale signs on the brains of newborns in the form of alterations to cerebellar white matter at the cellular and the physiological levels. Now, an experimental model of this chronic hypoxia reveals that those cellular alterations have behavioral consequences.

Chronic sublethal hypoxia is associated with locomotor miscoordination and long-term cerebellar learning deficits in a clinically relevant model of neonatal brain injury, according to a study led by Children’s National Health System researchers published online Aug. 13, 2018, by Nature Communications. Using high-tech optical and physiological methods that allow researchers to turn neurons on and off and an advanced behavioral tool, the research team finds that Purkinje cells fire significantly less often after injury due to perinatal hypoxia. However, an off-the-shelf medicine now used to treat epilepsy enables those specialized brain cells to regain their ability to fire, improving locomotor performance.

Step out of the car onto the pavement, hop up to the level of the curb, stride to the entrance, and climb a flight of stairs. Or, play a round of tennis. The cerebellum coordinates such locomotor performance and muscle memory, guiding people of all ages as they adapt to a changing environment.

“Most of us successfully coordinate our movements to navigate the three-dimensional spaces we encounter daily,” says Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D., Children’s Chief Research Officer and the study’s senior author. “After children start walking, they also have to learn how to navigate the environment and the spaces around them.”

These essential tasks, Gallo says, are coordinated by Purkinje cells, large neurons located in the cerebellum that are elaborately branched like interlocking tree limbs and represent the only source of output for the entire cerebellar cortex. The rate of development of the fetal cerebellum dramatically increases at a time during pregnancy that often coincides with preterm birth, which can delay or disrupt normal brain development.

“It’s almost like a short circuit. Purkinje cells play a very crucial role, and when the frequency of their firing is diminished by injury the whole output of this brain region is impaired,” Gallo says. “For a family of a child who has this type of impaired neural development, if we understand the nature of this disrupted circuitry and can better quantify it, in terms of locomotor performance, then we can develop new therapeutic approaches.”

Study authors Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., Joseph Abbah, B.Pharm., Ph.D., Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D. and Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D.

The research team leveraged a fully automated, computerized apparatus that looks like a ladder placed on a flat surface, encased in glass, with a darkened box at either end. Both the hypoxic and control groups had training sessions during which they learned how to traverse the horizontal ladder, coaxed out of the darkened room by a gentle puff of air and a light cue. Challenge sessions tested their adaptive cerebellar locomotor learning skills. The pads they strode across were pressure-sensitive and analyzed individual stepping patterns to predict how long it should take each to complete the course.

During challenge sessions, obstacles were presented in the course, announced by an audible tone. If learning was normal, then the response to the tone paired with the obstacle would be a quick adjustment of movement, without breaking stride, says Aaron Sathyanesan, Ph.D., co-lead author. Experimental models exposed to perinatal hypoxia showed significant deficits in associating that tone with the obstacle.

“With the control group, we saw fewer missteps during any given trial,” Sathyanesan says. “And, when they got really comfortable, they took longer steps. With the hypoxic group, it took them longer to learn the course. They made a significantly higher number of missteps from day one. By the end of the training period, they could walk along all of the default rungs, but it took them longer to learn how to do so.”

Purkinje cells fire two different kinds of spikes. Simple spikes are a form of constant activity as rhythmic and automatic as a heartbeat. Complex spikes, by contrast, occur less frequently. Sathyanesan and co-authors say that some of the deficits that they observed were due to a reduction in the frequency of simple spiking.

Two weeks after experiencing hypoxia, the hypoxic group’s locomotor performance remained significantly worse than the control group, and delays in learning could still be seen five weeks after hypoxia.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter, excites immature neurons before and shortly after birth but soon afterward switches to having an inhibitory effect within in the cerebellum, Sathyanesan says. The research team hypothesizes that reduced levels of excitatory GABA during early development leads to long-term motor problems. Using an off-the-shelf drug to increase GABA levels immediately after hypoxia dramatically improved locomotor performance.

“Treating experimental models with tiagabine after hypoxic injury elevates GABA levels, partially restoring Purkinje cells’ ability to fire,” Gallo says. “We now know that restoring GABA levels during this specific window of time has a beneficial effect. However, our approach was not specifically targeted to Purkinje cells. We elevated GABA everywhere in the brain. With more targeted and selective administration to Purkinje cells, we want to gauge whether tiagabine has a more powerful effect on normalizing firing frequency.”

In addition to Gallo and Sathyanesan, Children’s co-authors include Co-Lead Author, Srikanya Kundu, Ph.D., and Joseph Abbah, B.Pharm., Ph.D., both of Children’s Center for Neuroscience Research.

Research covered in this story was supported by the Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center under award number U54HD090257.

newborn in incubator

How EPO saves babies’ brains

newborn in incubator

Researchers have discovered that treating premature infants with erythropoietin can help protect and repair their vulnerable brains.

The drug erythropoietin (EPO) has a long history. First used more than three decades ago to treat anemia, it’s now a mainstay for treating several types of this blood-depleting disorder, including anemia caused by chronic kidney disease, myelodysplasia and cancer chemotherapy.

More recently, researchers discovered a new use for this old drug: Treating premature infants to protect and repair their vulnerable brains. However, how EPO accomplishes this feat has remained unknown. New genetic analyses presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2018 annual meeting that was conducted by a multi-institutional team that includes researchers from Children’s National show that this drug may work its neuroprotective magic by modifying genes essential for regulating growth and development of nervous tissue as well as genes that respond to inflammation and hypoxia.

“During the last trimester of pregnancy, the fetal brain undergoes tremendous growth. When infants are born weeks before their due dates, these newborns’ developing brains are vulnerable to many potential insults as they are supported in the neonatal intensive care unit during this critical time,” says An Massaro, M.D., an attending neonatologist at Children’s National Health System and lead author of the research. “EPO, a cytokine that protects and repairs neurons, is a very promising therapeutic approach to support the developing brains of extremely low gestational age neonates.”

The research team investigated whether micro-preemies treated with EPO had distinct DNA methylation profiles and related changes in expression of genes that regulate how the body responds to such environmental stressors as inflammation, hypoxia and oxidative stress.  They also investigated changes in genes involved in glial differentiation and myelination, production of an insulating layer essential for a properly functioning nervous system. The genetic analyses are an offshoot of a large, randomized clinical trial of EPO to treat preterm infants born between 24 and 27 gestational weeks.

The DNA of 18 newborns enrolled in the clinical trial was isolated from specimens drawn within 24 hours of birth and at day 14 of life. Eleven newborns were treated with EPO; a seven-infant control group received placebo.

DNA methylation and whole transcriptome analyses identified 240 candidate differentially methylated regions and more than 50 associated genes that were expressed differentially in infants treated with EPO compared with the control group. Gene ontology testing further narrowed the list to five candidate genes that are essential for normal neurodevelopment and for repairing brain injury:

“These findings suggest that EPO’s neuroprotective effect may be mediated by epigenetic regulation of genes involved in the development of the nervous system and that play pivotal roles in how the body responds to inflammation and hypoxia,” Dr. Massaro says.

In addition to Dr. Massaro, study co-authors include Theo K. Bammler, James W. MacDonald, biostatistician, Bryan Comstock, senior research scientist, and Sandra “Sunny” Juul, M.D., Ph.D., study principal investigator, all of University of Washington.

Nobuyuki Ishibashi

Children’s receives NIH grant to study use of stem cells in healing CHD brain damage

Nobuyuki Ishibashi

“Bone marrow stem cells are used widely for stroke patients, for heart attack patients and for those with developmental diseases,” explains Nobuyuki Ishibashi, M.D. “But they’ve never been used to treat the brains of infants with congenital heart disease. That’s why we are trying to understand how well this system might work for our patient population.”

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded researchers at Children’s National Health System $2.6 million to expand their studies into whether human stem cells could someday treat and even reverse neurological damage in infants born with congenital heart disease (CHD).

Researchers estimate that 1.3 million infants are born each year with CHD, making it the most common major birth defect. Over the past 30 years, advances in medical technology and surgical practices have dramatically decreased the percentage of infants who die from CHD – from a staggering rate of nearly 100 percent just a few decades ago to the current mortality rate of less than 10 percent.

The increased survival rate comes with new challenges: Children with complex CHD are increasingly diagnosed with significant neurodevelopmental delay or impairment. Clinical studies demonstrate that CHD can reduce oxygen delivery to the brain, a condition known as hypoxia, which can severely impair brain development in fetuses and newborns whose brains are developing rapidly.

Nobuyuki Ishibashi, M.D., the study’s lead investigator with the Center for Neuroscience Research and director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory at Children’s National, proposes transfusing human stem cells in experimental models through the cardio-pulmonary bypass machine used during cardiac surgery.

“These cells can then identify the injury sites,” says Dr. Ishibashi. “Once these cells arrive at the injury site, they communicate with endogenous tissues, taking on the abilities of the damaged neurons or glia cells they are replacing.”

“Bone marrow stem cells are used widely for stroke patients, for heart attack patients and for those with developmental diseases,” adds Dr. Ishibashi. “But they’ve never been used to treat the brains of infants with congenital heart disease. That’s why we are trying to understand how well this system might work for our patient population.”

Dr. Ishibashi says the research team will focus on three areas during their four-year study – whether the stem cells:

  • Reduce neurological inflammation,
  • Reverse or halt injury to the brain’s white matter and
  • Help promote neurogenesis in the subventricular zone, the largest niche in the brain for creating the neural stem/progenitor cells leading to cortical growth in the developing brain.

At the conclusion of the research study, Dr. Ishibashi says the hope is to develop robust data so that someday an effective treatment will be available and lasting neurological damage in infants with congenital heart disease will become a thing of the past.

newborn

Sirtuin could repair common neonatal brain injury

A sirtuin might help repair a common neonatal brain injury

A team of researchers  investigated the molecular mechanisms behind oligodendrocyte progenitor cell proliferation in neonatal hypoxia.

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What’s known

Hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen, is a major cause of diffuse white matter injury (DWMI). This condition leads to permanent developmental disabilities in prematurely born infants. The long-term abnormalities of the brain’s white matter that characterize DWMI are caused by the loss of a specific type of cells known as oligodendrocytes, which support nerve cells and produce myelin, a lipid and protein sheath that electrically insulates nerve cells. Oligodendrocytes are produced by a population of immature cells known as oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). Previous research has shown that hypoxia can trigger OPCs to proliferate and presumably produce new oligodendrocytes. The molecular pathways that hypoxia triggers to make new OPCs remain unclear.

What’s new

A team of researchers led by Vittorio Gallo, Ph.D., director of the Center for Neuroscience Research and the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Children’s National Health System, investigated the molecular mechanisms behind what prompts OPCs to proliferate in a preclinical model of neonatal hypoxia. The researchers found that a molecule known as Sirt1 acts as a major regulator of OPC proliferation and regeneration. Sirt1 is a sirtuin, a class of molecules that has attracted interest over the past several years for its role in stem cells, aging and inflammation. Hypoxia appears to induce Sirt1 formation. When the researchers prevented brain tissues in petri dishes from making Sirt1 or removed this molecule in preclinical models, these actions prevented OPC proliferation. What’s more, preventing Sirt1 production also inhibited OPCs from making oligodendrocytes. These findings suggest that Sirt1 is essential for replacing oligodendrocytes to repair DWMI after hypoxia. Additionally, finding ways to enhance Sirt1 activity eventually could provide a novel way to help infants recover after hypoxia and prevent DWMI.

Questions for future research

Q: How can Sirt1 activity be enhanced in preclinical models and humans?
Q: Can deficits triggered by diffuse white matter injury be prevented or reversed with Sirt1?
Q: Which other treatments might be useful for diffuse white matter injury?

Source: “Sirt1 regulates glial progenitor proliferation and regeneration in white matter after neonatal brain injury.” Jablonska, M., M. Gierdalski, L. Chew, T. Hawley, M. Catron, A. Lichauco, J. Cabrera-Luque, T. Yuen, D. Rowitch and V. Gallo. Published by Nature Communications on Dec. 19, 2016.