WASHINGTON, June 26: One of the body’s chemicals that helps nerves grow can help rewire the brain after it has been damaged by a stroke, according to a study on rats released Wednesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Inosine is a nucleoside that promotes the growth of nerve fibres called axons, the tendrils that transmit nerve signals. According to the study, inosine can reestablish connections in damaged parts of the brain by growing the axons.

“The study shows that Inosine induces a great deal of rewiring in the brain after (a) stroke,” said the study’s director, Dr. Larry Benowitz, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“This rewiring is apparently sufficient to promote substantial functional recovery,” he said.

Inosine has shown no side effects in animals so far, he said.

Inosine is produced naturally in the body, but for this study, it was produced by Boston Life Sciences, which in 2001 already reported encouraging results when it was administered within the first 24 hours of the onset of a stroke.

Some 750,000 people suffer from strokes annually in the United States.—AFP