YAZAR U. (Executive), TOPSAKAL A. S., AYAR A., GÜVERCİN A. R., ÇAKIR E., AKTAŞ O.
Project Supported by Higher Education Institutions, 2020 - 2023
As a result of
injuries such as traffic accidents, a number
of people experience
movement disorders, even paralysis, and there is still no effective treatment for this conditions. Compression, excessive stretching, crushing or cutting
of the sciatic nerve which is the
largest nerve in
the body, causes pain in the
region from the
underside of the spine to the direction of the back of the legs, loss of muscle strength and sensory
impairments. The cortexin (Turkish: “korteksin”), a drug containing hydrolyzed brain peptides, was discovered
in Russia and has been used in the treatment for a long
time. However, its effect on the
problems due to sciatic nerve
damage
has
not been studied yet. Within the
scope of this project, sciatic nerve damage was surgically induced in rats as experimental animals and the
possible healing effects of the cortexin were examined by
measuring the strength in the muscle stimulated by the nerve and the pain triggered by heat and mechanical stimulation in the affected
leg. In addition, the related
nerve of cortexin-treated rats
was
examined
by histopathologic examinations and molecular markers were analyzed by advanced techniques. Accordingly, it was concluded that cortexin has ameliorative
effects on sciatic
nerve damage in
a dose-dependent
manner.