Yakutia team aims to keep degenerative brain disease at bay

Print 18 September 2017
Marchmont Innovation News

Scientists at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk (NEFU), in Russia’s Far East, have developed a method of alleviating symptoms and slowing down the progression of spinocerebellar ataxia, or atrophy, an acute genetic brain disease that leads to dramatic motor coordination impairment and eventual shortening of a patient’s life expectancy. 

“Diagnostics is based on analysis of a patient’s neurological status, hereditary factor, and molecular-genetic research data. Our effort is aimed at impeding cerebellum obliteration, improving the patient’s general health condition, and checking the process of motor coordination impairment,” NEFU senior research fellow Fyodor Platonov explained. 

Spinocerebellar ataxia is a progressive degenerative disease which a person may develop typically in his or her late 20s or early 30s. The disease wrecks both the brain and the spinal cord; after the initial symptoms were diagnosed, one’s life expectancy is reduced to 10-15 years.

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