Morphine Can Protect The Brains Of People Suffering From HIV Infection.
The anaesthetic morphine may relief care for against HIV-associated dementia, says a imaginative study 4rxbox com. Georgetown University Medical Center researchers found that morphine protected rat neurons from HIV toxicity, a origination that could manage to the development of new drugs to treat kinsfolk with HIV-related dementia, which causes depression, anxiety and physical and barmy problems.
So "We believe that morphine may be neuroprotective in a subset of individuals infected with HIV," lead investigator Italo Mocchetti, a professor of neuroscience, said in a Georgetown information release. He and his colleagues conducted the den because they knew that some people with HIV who are heroin users never bare HIV brain dementia. Morphine is like to heroin.
In their tests on rats, the researchers found that morphine triggers imagination cells called astrocytes to produce a protein called CCL5, which activates factors that censor HIV infection in exempt cells. CCL5 "is known to be important in blood, but we didn't identify it is secreted in the brain," Mocchetti said. "Our premise is that it is in the brain to prevent neurons from dying".
The read was to be presented at the annual meeting of the Society of NeuroImmune Pharmacology, April 13 to 17 in Manhattan Beach, Calif. "Ideally, we can use this news to strengthen a morphine-like compound that does not have the typical dependency and clearance issues that morphine has," Mocchetti said.
