Novel Interactions Between Two Proteins (Hevin & Calcyon) May Help in Recovering from Brain Injury

Patients with brain injury (caused by stroke or trauma) rely primarily on rehabilitation therapy for recovery, as there are no other known effective treatment methods. The rate of recovery from brain injury observed in adults is significantly slower (or the recovery is impossible) than that observed in young children. The consensus among researchers is that the number of excess neural stem cells capable of restoring brain functions is lower in a mature brain than that in the brain of young children. A Korean research team has now reported a novel mechanism to describe the brain injury recovery process. The researchers reported that when the animal model experiment was conducted, the time taken to recover from a brain injury could be controlled by regulating certain proteins. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has released an announcement that a team led by Dr. Eun Mi Hwang (photo) of the Brain Science Institute, KIST, collaborated with another team led by Prof. Kyoungho Suk of the School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, and reported the presence of a novel interaction between two proteins (hevin and calcyon); this interaction plays a critical role in the brain injury recovery process in adults. The researchers also revealed that this interaction plays an important role in the early stages of recovery. The results were published online on March 22, 2021 in Cell Death and Differentiation. The article is titled “Hevin–Calcyon Interaction Promotes Synaptic Reorganization After Brain Injury.”