They demonstrate the neuroprotective role of a cheap drug for the heart

With a drug costing just 2 euros, a brain could be protected after having suffered a stroke and reduce many of its consequences, thus benefiting millions of patients.

This is metoprolol, a drug from the beta-blocker family, used for more than 40 years in cardiology, which has now been shown to have a unique neuroprotective effect.

This is confirmed by a study carried out in Spain by researchers from the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital and the Biomedical Research Network Center for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERCV), led by Dr. Borja Ibáñez and published in the academic journal British Journal of Pharmacology.

Strokes are one of the leading causes of death in the Western world. Ischemic stroke, which occurs when cerebral arteries become clogged, thereby preventing blood from reaching the brain, is the most common event. Currently, there are few therapeutic alternatives to treat the consequences of a stroke. One of the most serious is the death of neurons due to time without oxygen or brain inflammation that occurs after the reopening of the obstructed artery, which causes damage to the brain that is responsible for much of the sequelae that they have. survivors.

Now, the group led by Dr. Borja Ibáñez, director of the CNIC Clinical Research Department, cardiologist at Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital and group leader at CIBERCV, has shown in a rat model that treatment with metoprolol is capable to protect the brain during a stroke and considerably reduce its subsequent consequences. Thus, the rats that received intravenous metoprolol during the course of the stroke showed less brain inflammation and less neuronal death, which, in the long term, translated into an improvement in the animal’s neuromotor abilities.

“This type of study opens the door to being able to investigate the usefulness of metoprolol in patients with ischemic cerebral stroke in clinical trials, something that could help prevent neurological sequelae in survivors,” says Dr. Ibáñez. Repositioning ‘old’ drugs for use in new pathologies, he adds, “is one of the lines of research with the greatest benefits for the health system in general and patients in particular”.

Metoprolol, a drug traditionally used in cardiology, is capable of protecting the brain during a stroke and considerably reducing its consequences. (Image: CNIC)

The group led by Dr. Ibáñez has spent more than a decade studying the properties of metoprolol, a beta-blocker drug used for more than 40 years in patients with high blood pressure or arrhythmias.

They first showed that this drug was beneficial in patients who were having a heart attack. The group’s “eureka” moment was when the mechanism by which metoprolol protected the heart during a heart attack was discovered: inhibition of exacerbated inflammation mediated by a type of immune system cell, neutrophils.

As explained by Dr. Ibáñez, “when we discovered the mechanism of action, we thought that it could be applied to other pathologies, where the hyperactivation of neutrophils plays a relevant role”. (Source: CNIC)