Researchers now understand why up to 40% of people poisoned by carbon monoxide mysteriously develop permanent brain damage weeks later. Changes to a protein found in the brain trigger a disastrous immune response. This knowledge could lead to new treatments for this common type of poisoning.
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas, and more people die each year from inhaling than any other poison. carbon monoxide sticks to hemoglobin oxygen molecules carrying inside of blood cells much better than the oxygen molecules are, which means that the blood can not deliver oxygen to the brain and other organs. Doctors treat patients with pure oxygen and can remove carbon monoxide from the bloodstream within hours, but many people still develop permanent brain damage similar to Parkinson's disease. Until now, doctors could not explain why or how.
Through experiments with rats, Stephen Thom, a doctor of medical emergency at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and his team tracked biochemical changes in the brain after carbon monoxide the exposure. They found that when carbon monoxide deprives the brain of oxygen, a common protein in the insulating sheaths around neurons - myelin basic protein (MBP) - becomes changed. The chemically modified MACM then triggers immune responses in the brain. But the immune system does not know when to stop. After clearing much of the MBP altered in a few weeks, immune cells continue to fight against normal PBM ", creating the potential risk of damage to permanent brain and continuous," says Thom.
To confirm that the MBP is at the heart of delayed brain damage, the team designed a group of rats unable to develop antibodies against MBP and exposed them to carbon monoxide. None of the rats developed delayed brain damage, and they normally played in a maze test designed to measure cognitive and motor skills, reports online this week in the team Proceedings of the National Academy of science . Thom now hopes to study the possibility of preventing permanent brain damage by the use of immunosuppressive drugs.
The study is a tour de force, says Lindell Weaver, a doctor of intensive care at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He added that the findings could have implications for treating other diseases and injuries that deprive the brain of oxygen.
Related Sites
Stephen Thom website
The Lindell Weaver website
information sheet about the CDC CO poisoning
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