A new study finds that plant extracts used by indigenous people hold promise for the treatment of ataxia.
Extracts from plants used by the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations peoples in their traditional botanical medicine practices rescue the function of ion channel proteins carrying mutations that cause human episodic ataxia, the researchers report.
“Episodic Ataxia 1 (EA1) is a movement disorder caused by inherited mutations in the human KCNA1 gene, which encodes Kv1.1, a voltage-gated potassium channel essential for normal function of the human nervous system,” says Geoffrey W. Abbott, vice dean of basic science research and professor in the physiology and biophysics department at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine….