Ganglioside treatment of alcoholic neuropathies: experimental and clinical aspects

Recent research results indicate that gangliosides, complex glycolipids present in neuronal membranes, play an important functional role in nervous transmission. Physiological and pharmacological investigations have shown that the parenteral administration of a bovine cerebral cortex ganglioside preparation exerts a reinnervation-stimulating activity, due to enhanced nerve sprouting, in peripheral neuropathies. Experimental data are presented showing that the administration of ganglioside prevents the decrease of the conduction velocity, measured in the sciatic nerve of laboratory animals chronically intoxicated with ethanol. Gangliosides are also able to improve the conduction velocity in the sciatic nerve of animals already damaged by the same neurotoxic agent. With regard to therapeutical aspects in alcoholic patients with sensory or motor-sensory polyneuropathy, a review is presented covering 114 patients studied in several clinical trials by means of clinical and instrumental investigations. The clinical parameters, especially the sensory disturbances, turn out to be very responsive to ganglioside treatment. Also, the electrophysiological effects are positively influenced, even though this kind of investigation presents methodological difficulties connected with the great variability of baseline data.