A promising new approach to combating brain injury in oxygen-deprived newborns is being developed by University of Otago researchers.

Between one and six children per 1000 live births suffer brain injury due to low oxygen levels at birth, which can lead to conditions such as cerebral palsy. Current treatments to prevent the brain injury, which results from a series of devastating chemical reactions in nerve cells, are only moderately successful.

Newly published research by Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology Associate Professor Dorothy Oorschot indicates that combining two therapies may be highly effective in rescuing damaged nerve cells and restoring motor function.

The findings appeared in the world's leading neuropathology journal Brain Pathology.

Associate Professor Oorschot says that on their own, the two treatments – which involve inducing moderate hypothermia or administering an antioxidant – show either no or modest improvement.

"However, when we used the treatments together in an animal model, we found that nerve cells were protected and fine motor skills preserved after moderate brain injury from oxygen deprivation," she says.

Associate Professor Oorschot and her team are now focusing on refining the combination of the two treatments to provide the most effective results.

"We are hopeful that this combined treatment might one day be able to rescue completely damaged nerve cells and restore motor function to normal levels in affected babies."