Celastrol “has been studied, but not really in combination with [other] things,” Amelia says. To see if it might lower the dose of an NSAID needed to help the brain bounce back from a TBI, Amelia worked with an animal model: fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). The same brain pathway promotes inflammation in both fly and human brains.
She purchased a lot of fruit flies — at least 120. First, she tested how quickly each fly could climb a clear tube that was 9.4 centimeters (about 4 inches) tall. They were in search of a treat: moldy raspberry juice. The flies took a little less than a minute, on average, to complete the climb.
Then, one by one, Amelia stuck each fly into another tube. It was attached to a spring lying horizontally. One end of that spring was attached to a plank of wood below. The spring’s free end held the tube with a fly.
Again and again, Amelia pulled the tube upward so that the spring stretched straight up at a 90-degree angle. Then she let it go. This released the tube holding the fly. As it slammed down onto a surface below, the fly got knocked against the wall of the tube. She did this four times for each insect. It left each of them with a TBI.
Afterward, the teen again tested her flies’ climbing ability. Most were now so disoriented that they took more than two minutes, on average, to climb up their tubes. Several didn’t even bother to try, Amelia says. Instead, these dazed bugs ran around the bottom of their tubes in circles.
Treatment helped the flies recover
Amelia later transferred the flies to new tubes. Thirty of them got food into which she mixed an NSAID called naproxen at a dose of 200 micrograms (µg) per milliliter (ml) of food. Another 30 got food laced with celastrol, also at 200 µg per ml. A third group of 30 flies received food treated with both naproxen and celastrol, each medicine at 100 µg per ml. The last group of 30 flies got plain food.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — When Amelia Hammersley was in sixth grade, her younger sister went to the hospital after hurting her head in a fall. Her diagnosis: a concussion. That’s …read more
Source:: Science Explores
