Introduction: A Moment That Caught My Attention
I was working on my computer, replying to emails, when I received the same article twice—once from a podcast listener and again from someone I coach in stroke recovery. That headline hit me like a bolt of lightning:
“UCLA discovers first stroke rehabilitation drug to re-establish brain connections in mice.”
It’s not every day we hear the words “drug” and “stroke recovery” in the same sentence. Naturally, I had to look into it—and now I want to share what I’ve learned and what it might mean for us.
A Groundbreaking Discovery from UCLA
Published in Nature Communications, the study led by Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, Chair of Neurology at UCLA, explored whether the benefits of physical rehabilitation could be reproduced in drug form.
Here’s the core finding: a new drug, tested in mice, restored lost movement and brain connectivity by mimicking the effects of physical rehab. Specifically, it reactivated parts of the brain that had gone “offline”—not damaged, just disconnected.
The implications are massive. Currently, there are no approved drugs that aid in stroke recovery. Survivors must rely on physical rehabilitation, which many can’t access or sustain due to fatigue, cost, or limited healthcare support.
Understanding the Science: Parvalbumin Neurons and Gamma Oscillations
The drug targets a special type of neuron, parvalbumin neurons, that help generate gamma oscillations, a brain rhythm necessary for coordinated movement. These rhythms often vanish after a stroke, leaving certain brain regions disconnected.
UCLA’s new compound, DDL-920, helped regenerate these connections and restored coordinated movement in mice. That’s a first.
So What Does This Mean for Stroke Survivors Today?
Let’s be real: this drug isn’t available yet. It’s years away from human trials. But the study raises an important question:
What do we do NOW if we want to support our recovery beyond standard rehab?
There are already a few treatments out there aimed at “reawakening” sleepy or disconnected parts of the brain:
Perispinal Etanercept
- An anti-inflammatory drug is used off-label for stroke.
- Targets brain inflammation and has helped some survivors regain speech or mobility.
- Drawback: Expensive, and not everyone sees results. It’s trial and error.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
- Involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber.
- Shown to reactivate dormant brain areas in stroke survivors.
- Drawback: Expensive and time-intensive (daily sessions for 8–12 weeks).
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)
- Uses magnetic fields to stimulate brain regions.
- Especially effective for stroke survivors with aphasia or motor challenges.
- Available in some rehab settings, but not universally accessible.
The Role of Physical Rehab: Still the Cornerstone
Even with promising developments, physical rehabilitation remains vital. Whether you’re using a walker, in a wheelchair, or working with one functioning side, movement matters.
Every effort you make counts, because neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself) is driven by repetition and action.
Lifestyle: The Low-Cost, High-Impact Pill You Already Have
Besides medical options, there are things you can do today:
- Reduce inflammation by cutting back on sugar and processed carbs.
- Focus on protein and vegetables to fuel your brain.
- Eliminate smoking and alcohol to support healing.
Final Thoughts: From Hope to Action
The UCLA study brings hope for the future, but we can’t sit around waiting. The journey of recovery demands curiosity, experimentation, and effort.
Whether it’s exploring new treatments, improving your diet, or moving just a little more each day, you have more tools than you think.
And if that pill comes to market one day? You’ll be even better prepared to benefit from it.
Until then, let’s keep doing the work.
Leave a comment below—have you tried Etanercept, HBOT, or rTMS? Would you try this drug if it became available? Let’s talk.
Resources & Interviews:
Etanercept for Stroke Recovery: MYTH? or Reality – Andrew Stopps
Perispinal Etanercept & Stroke Recovery Story: Dwayne Semple
Reviving the Brain: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Stroke Recovery | Dr. Amir Hadani
HBOT for Brain Repair and Stroke Recovery – Shai Efrati
Could a Pill Replace Rehab? What the UCLA Stroke Drug Discovery Means for Survivors
https://youtu.be/qMdm1g71NeY
UCLA stroke drug study gives stroke survivors fresh hope for recovery. Discover how this breakthrough compares to treatments like etanercept and HBOT.
Highlights:
00:00 UCLA’s Discovery of a Stroke Rehabilitation Drug
04:59 Identifying Brain Connections and Candidate Drugs
09:25 Challenges and Current Interventions
14:21 Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Future Research
18:11 Importance of Physical Rehabilitation and Lifestyle Changes
Transcript:
UCLA Stroke Drug Discovery
Bill Gasiamis 0:01
I’m sitting here doing some work on my computer, sending emails, and I received an email for the second time in two days on the same topic from two different people. The first one was somebody who follows the podcast. The second one was somebody who I coach on their stroke recovery journey.
Bill Gasiamis 0:20
And I’ll read you the title of the article, and then I’ll read some sections of the article, just so you can get a sense of what it is that they’re talking about. So the heading goes, UCLA discovers first stroke rehabilitation drug to re establish brain connections in mice.
Bill Gasiamis 0:39
It continues by saying a new study by UCLA health has discovered what researchers say is the first drug to fully reproduce the effects of physical stroke rehabilitation in mice. So what this drug does is it creates improvements in the brain through a pill that physical rehabilitation often can achieve for stroke survivors during their rehabilitation phase.
Bill Gasiamis 1:15
The findings published in Nature Communications tested two candidate drugs derived from their studies on the mechanisms of the brain, effects of rehabilitation, one of which resulted in significant recovery in movement control after stroke in mice.
Bill Gasiamis 1:36
There are no drugs in the field of stroke recovery, requiring stroke patients to undergo physical rehabilitation, which has shown to be only modestly effective. So what they’re doing is they’re downplaying a physical rehabilitation in this particular publication, and they’re saying what they’re going after is the going after a pill that will mimic the effects of physical rehabilitation, but take it to the next level.
Bill Gasiamis 2:06
The goal is to have a medicine that stroke patients can take that produces the effects of rehabilitation, said Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, the study’s lead author and professor and chair of UCLA, neurology, rehabilitation after stroke is limited in its actual effects, because most patients cannot sustain the rehab intensity needed for stroke recovery.
Bill Gasiamis 2:30
So he’s discovered that and correctly so that a lot of stroke patients can’t have the intensity of physical rehabilitation needed to recover those parts of the brain that are not functioning correctly, and that might be for a number of reasons, because fatigue gets in the way, also because maybe insurance forgets that they need to support these people and stops paying.
Bill Gasiamis 2:58
And as a result of that, there isn’t enough physical therapy that’s being done for stroke survivors to actually get the effects that they may otherwise have been able to get if they were able to sustain the physical rehabilitation. I mean, it’s not news to stroke survivors that insurance companies don’t support enough and that physical rehabilitation is difficult. We know that, and we need all the help we can get, and hopefully this particular drug addresses that issue.
Bill Gasiamis 3:32
Now, further stroke recovery is not like most other fields of medicine where drugs are available that treat the disease, such as cardiology, infectious diseases or cancer. Carmichael said rehabilitation is a physical medicine approach that has been around for decades. We need to move rehabilitation into an era of Molecular Medicine, and I kind of agree with that statement, like physical rehabilitation is the only tool that we’ve had.
Bill Gasiamis 4:05
It’s kind of like, the brick layer has only ever been able to use a trail to lay mud on a brick and lay bricks. It’s been done like that for centuries. And I think what he’s referring to is that although physical rehabilitation is a really good tool for stroke survivors, it’s probably not as effective as it could be because of the limitations that are associated with physical rehabilitation.
Bill Gasiamis 4:35
The pain the patient’s abilities, and also the lack of, in my opinion, the lack of support by insurance companies. In the study, Carmichael and his team sought to determine how physical rehabilitation improved brain function after a stroke and whether they could generate a drug that could produce the same effects, working in a laboratory with mice models of stroke.
Identifying Brain Connections and Candidate Drugs
Bill Gasiamis 4:59
And with stroke patients, the UCLA researchers identified a loss of brain connections that stroke produces that are remote from the site of the stroke damaged. So what they’ve identified is areas of the brain that have been taken offline because of the stroke but are not damaged.
Bill Gasiamis 5:19
So if the stroke happened here, they may have found that there’s an area of the brain back here that has been taken offline, that isn’t damaged, but it has been taken offline as a result of the stroke that happened over here. This part of the brain may be damaged, but this part of the brain isn’t damaged. It’s still there. It’s kind of sleepy, it’s alive, but it’s not connected to the rest of the brain.
Bill Gasiamis 5:44
And what they are hoping to do is find a way to re link that part of the brain to the rest of the brain so that it can take over the tasks that were lost with the damage that occurred after the stroke. So the UCLA team found that some of the connections that are lost after a stroke occur in a cell called the paravalbumin neuron.
Bill Gasiamis 6:12
Oh, my God, I butchered that. This type of neuron helps generate a brain rhythm called gamma oscillation, which links neurons together so that they form coordinated networks to produce a behavior such as movement. So basically, those particular hard to pronounce neurons create a particular function called the gamma oscillation, and that is what helps connect that area.
Bill Gasiamis 6:40
Usually that’s offline to the rest of the brain, and because of the stroke, that oscillation has been temporarily made not available, and therefore that part of the brain is switched off and makes it look like that person has lost that particular function. Some people might describe that area that’s offline as a penumbra. Usually, the penumbra that is spoken about is spoken about in this part of the brain where the damage has occurred.
Bill Gasiamis 7:11
A Penumbra is an area that’s been inflamed by the injury, and usually it is the first thing to come back online within the first six months. But what they’ve discovered is that after stroke, there’s penumbras in other areas that have been previously overlooked. So Carmichael and the team identified two candidate drugs that might produce gamma oscillations after stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 7:34
So what they’re hoping is that these drugs will create those gamma oscillations, those movements after the stroke, and specifically work to excite the par Val buen neurons. The researchers found that one of the drugs developed in the UCLA lab of Varghese John who co authored the study and produced significant recovery in movement control in mice. So they’ve identified two drugs, and as a result of that, they are seeing that they’ve been able to reproduce recovery in the mice in their research that have experienced the stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 8:16
So as we get to the end of the paper on the reporting of what the study found. The final part says it first identifies circuitry that underlies the effect of rehabilitation in the brain. So it identifies the circuitry that underlies the effect of rehabilitation, that is responsible for the rehabilitation that can support the rehabilitation, and then identifies a unique drug targeted in this rehabilitation brain circuitry to promote recovery by mimicking the main effect of physical rehabilitation. So the plan is to identify if there’s areas in the brain that can be supported and rehabilitated.
Bill Gasiamis 9:05
And then what they do is they use one of the drugs to create or support the brain circuitry that’s been switched off to promote the recovery by mimicking the main effect of physical rehabilitation. So what they’re doing is they’re trying to determine where those areas of brain that switched off are.
Challenges and Current Interventions
Bill Gasiamis 9:25
Then they are providing the patient, in this particular case, the mice with one of the two drugs to see whether or not one of those two drugs has been able to support re exciting those neurons and therefore restore function, and then the final sentence goes further studies are needed to understand the safety and efficacy of the drug before it can be considered for human trials.
Bill Gasiamis 9:51
Of course, this is the difficult part. Is that we see a study like this, and as stroke survivors, we latch on. The hope that it’s going to be available very shortly, and that would not be able to take advantage of it. And unfortunately, it’s not going to be available for quite some time, because before it moves into human trials, the mice trials have to be done, and they have to be proven to be successful again and again, and then they need to replicate that in human trials.
Bill Gasiamis 10:19
And then from that, there is a number of years that need to pass before human trials can be proven affected, and then before a drug can be developed and then approved by all the people who need to approve it, and then made available to stroke survivors. And that’s, I suppose why I’m doing this video, is to then say, okay, so what do we do now? This stuff is not available.
Bill Gasiamis 10:42
It’s a great story for the future. But what do we do now? We need something now. Well, there are already some options that treat specifically those areas of the brain that are switched off, that are dormant and are needing support to come back online, and one of those interventions is perispinal etanercept, the controversial etanercept that lots of stroke survivors know about.
Bill Gasiamis 11:10
And I have spoken to two stroke survivors who have had results with etanercept with Dr tobernick, and the links of those interviews will be in the description of this particular video, and that’s what ataricep does. The problem with atanocept is that it is off label. That means that it’s being used in an area that is not approved for use, and usually a tennercept was being used for people who had rheumatoid arthritis to decrease inflammation in their joints. And it still is very effective and being used in that space.
Bill Gasiamis 11:46
And for some reason, it has moved around eight or nine years ago into being used for people who are experiencing stroke. And the main person who has been involved in that particular project is Dr tobinick from Florida, and as a result of that, he has been able to restore function in some, in many, many stroke survivors, and in some cases, also not been able to support stroke survivors.
Bill Gasiamis 12:13
And that’s my problem with the tennercept, is that when you go to receive a tennercept, you don’t know whether you’re an ideal candidate. So you have to pay you have to fork out the cash, you have to go there, do all the treatment, and then you may not get a result, and that’s the only way of knowing. And the reason being is because there’s not a method beforehand to determine whether or not somebody is the ideal candidate.
Bill Gasiamis 12:38
But it’s available right now, and there’s plenty of people that have had the opportunity to receive some injections of a tennercept, and they’ve had results. The other intervention is hyperbaric oxygen theory and of therapy. And I’ve interviewed two doctors who offer hyperbaric oxygen therapy, who have clinics in the United States, in Israel and in the United Arab Emirates.
Bill Gasiamis 13:02
And again, the difference being is that this particular protocol of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is five days a week for three months, I do believe. And it’s really, really expensive, but the difference is at least that they will be able to determine whether or not you have additional areas in the brain, those penumbras, those sleepy areas that are offline and can be rehabilitated, and as a result, can restore function.
Bill Gasiamis 13:33
That is the beautiful part of the method that they use for hyperbaric oxygen therapy is they determine whether somebody is a candidate or not, before they go to the expense to work out whether or not they can participate in the therapy with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. So the links to those two interviews are also going to be in the description. You can go and check out those interviews as well.
Bill Gasiamis 13:59
And the big challenge with etanercept and hyperbaric oxygen therapy is that they’re very, very expensive, and not many people can afford those particular treatments, especially since they’ve had a stroke, and then they’re not working after stroke. To come up with the funds to do that is really difficult when medical bills and everything else is piling up.
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Future Research
Bill Gasiamis 14:21
So there are a couple of the things that are already available to do what this drug is meant to do, and some of the challenges with getting access to those particular two interventions now the third one is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is a non invasive brain stimulation technique using magnetic fields to activate specific brain areas.
Bill Gasiamis 14:49
How it helps is that it can promote plasticity and potentially improve motor function. And the way that it works is that the brain stimulation happens from the outside of the brain. With magnets and is placed on a targeted area, and it’s supposed to excite the neurons in that space and bring them back to life, if they are there to be rehabilitated, and that is supposed to help in rehabilitating people and supporting their brain to come back online.
Bill Gasiamis 15:17
Now I haven’t interviewed anyone who has done that particular therapy, and I don’t know much about it, but it is currently available, and some people might have already accessed it. And if you’re one of those people and you’ve had some results, or you haven’t had results, it’d be really interesting to speak to you about it and hear what you have to say.
Bill Gasiamis 15:37
Oh, and it’s important to mention that that therapy is specifically used for people who are recovering from aphasia and hemiparesis, and often it is done in rehab, in rehab in stroke hospitals in the early stages of their recovery. So they’re the three treatments that are currently available that are similar to the drug that these researchers at UCLA are trying to develop.
Bill Gasiamis 16:07
And one of the reasons why this study is occurring is because it’s probably backed by a pharmaceutical company, and they’re looking for the next thing to create to support stroke survivors. Because if they develop it, if they work out what it is, they can pay it into and then they can make a lot of money out of it, which is understandable and is necessary. But that is why there isn’t a lot of research being done in paraspinal etanercept, because etanercept is off label. It probably has fallen out of that where it is still patented, and as a result of that, there isn’t a ton of money to be made in that space.
Bill Gasiamis 16:48
So nobody’s pushing for research to be done in that area for stroke rehabilitation, when it’s already proven to be effective in arthritis. And as a result of that, they’re just running with what they have approval for, and it seems to be doing what it’s doing for arthritis, but it does create a situation where the only way what’s the word you can progress the science and the uses of a particular drug is to do what Dr. Tobinick is doing, and that opens him up for controversial comments from people who don’t get results because of the lack of being able to determine whether or not you’re a good candidate for a tennercept.
Bill Gasiamis 17:32
And then you get the other end where people do get great results, and then they rave about it. So that’s the challenge. Is that when there aren’t studies being funded to do the work to determine the efficacy of a particular intervention, well then it’s up to up to a few people to do that work, and they put themselves at great risk of scrutiny by people who have been disappointed they didn’t get the outcomes that they wanted, and by people who are skeptical as to whether or not etanercept works, there seems to be a lot of research that etanercept does work.
Importance of Physical Rehabilitation and Lifestyle Changes
Bill Gasiamis 18:11
A lot of people reporting that it does work, and unfortunately, it is very expensive, and nobody else is doing the work to determine its efficacy in this space. So that brings me to the last thing. What’s the last thing that we can do to support bringing those sleepy, dormant parts of the brain back online, physical rehabilitation, as much physical rehabilitation as you can, whether you are hemiplegic, whether you’re in a wheelchair, whether your left arm or your left leg doesn’t work, or one of the other ones don’t work.
Bill Gasiamis 18:50
The more physical rehabilitation you can do, the more results you get, the more chances that you’ll be able to wake up some of those sleepy areas of the brain. I can’t emphasize it enough how important exercise is. After a stroke, doesn’t matter if it’s hard, doesn’t matter if you hate it doesn’t matter if it hurts. You have to find a way to become physically active, even if it’s sitting down in a wheelchair or standing up and holding on to a walker in any way, shape or form, physical rehabilitation is really, really important.
Bill Gasiamis 19:21
And if you can’t get access to it in a medical facility or in a rehabilitation facility, you have to find another way to get access to it. Now, what else can you do to support the brain? Well, you can stop smoking, you can stop drinking, and you can stop eating large amounts of carbohydrates, especially the carbohydrates of the kind that are wheat-based and from flour and sugars and all the carbs that cause high loads on the body and focus on a higher protein and vegetable diet.
Bill Gasiamis 20:00
And then avoid sodas and foods that are going to be inflammatory after a stroke. I hope you enjoyed this summary, this video, this breakdown of this new finding by the UCLA. Please share your thoughts and comments and feelings in the comments below. I will respond to all of them. Let’s start a conversation, and like, share, subscribe to the show, and I look forward to hearing from you, and I’ll see you on the next video.
