A small dose of medical meth might go a long way in limiting post-TBI brain damage

A mistake made by a PhD student in a University of Montana lab nearly a decade ago is now on the brink of mid-stage clinical trials as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury.

And, most surprising of all, the treatment consists of a small dose of methamphetamine.

It all started when a research assistant in David Poulsens neuroscience research lab was doing an experiment that involved using high doses of methamphetamine to create brain damage in small animal models. But somewhere along the line, he misread one of the concentrations of meth that he was preparing and accidentally gave a dramatically diluted dose to one group of rats.

When the team later processed the brain specimens, they found that one group of rats was mysteriously neuroprotected. It was the group that had mistakenly received a small dose.

Poulsens team took that discovery and ran with it, spending the next several years applying for grants and studying how it was possible that a drug so dangerous to the brain in high doses could be so beneficial in low doses.

Actually, medical meth has been in use for quite some time. It was used in the 1930s to treat asthma and narcolepsy, and during World War II to keep pilots awake. Today, a low dose is used in the ADHD drug Desonyx.

Dr. James Fonger, a heart surgeon whos CEO of the venture thats commercializing the labs work, said it has to do with dopamine. At high doses, there are a couple of well-known receptors in the brain which get hit by the drug and cause damage. Underneath that, theres dopamine receptors that are completely overwhelmed at high doses and have no effect, he explained. But if you only mildly stimulate the dopamine receptors, they are very neuroprotective.

With method of use patents from University of Montana, Buffalo-based Sinapis Pharma is commercializing low-dose IV methamphetamine as a new way to treat traumatic brain injuries, potentially up to 12 hours after they occur.

TBI is an appealing market for the neuroprotective treatment because theres currently no therapeutic treatment out there. Its a little bit like what we used to do with people who had a heart attack or conventional stroke, which was put them to bed and hope they get better, Fonger said.

Fonger sees the TBI treatment paradigm shifting in the same way that it did in cardiac care in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, he said, cardiologists have a whole library of things they can do after someone has a heart attack to both fix structural heart problems and prevent future heart attacks.

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A small dose of medical meth might go a long way in limiting post-TBI brain damage