The research is shared by the Technion and universities abroad
The Technion
Technion researchers, in collaboration with an international research team, found that a new drug called Neurodex significantly relieves multiple sclerosis patients and other neurological patients from bursts of uncontrollable laughter and crying, which many of the patients suffer from. These phenomena are very embarrassing for the patients and their loved ones. Emotional expressions that are not adjusted to the reality and the real experience of the person and that are expressed in bursts of uncontrollable crying, laughter or anger are recognized neurological phenomena in a variety of conditions and neurological diseases, such as after a head injury, a stroke, ALS disease or multiple sclerosis.
In an international multicenter clinical trial that recently ended and whose positive results were published yesterday in the neurological scientific monthly Annals of Neurology, a new drug called Neurodex was tested on multiple sclerosis patients. Professor Ariel Miller, from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and director of the Center for Multiple Sclerosis and Brain Research at the Carmel Medical Center, says that it became clear that treatment with Neurodex, a pill per day, resulted in a noticeable relief of this phenomenon of excessive emotional expressions among multiple sclerosis patients and a very significant improvement in their quality of life. At the same time, it was observed that the patients with the drug received considerable relief from neuropathic pain that was their lot.
The study was conducted under the joint initiative of Professor Ariel Miller, an international team of researchers and the pharmaceutical company Avanir from San Diego.
Following this study, it is expected that the approval of the US health authorities (FDA) will soon be received for the widespread use of the drug Neurodex for these symptoms in a variety of neurological diseases.
An integrated research team of Professors Ariel Miller and Hillel Perat from the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion has been investigating in recent years the neural mechanisms and brain regions underlying the control of emotional expressions such as laughter and crying.
