Skip to content
Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

PROTEIN ALLOWS PARALYZED MICE TO WALK AGAIN

Researchers at Germany’s Ruhr University Bochum have reached a goal sought for centuries by medical science: how to make legs paralyzed by a massive spinal cord injury walk again.
The spine’s nerve fibers, once damaged or cut, are unable to regenerate themselves. As a result, communication is lost between the mind and the body below the damaged point of the spinal cord.
Scientists have had some luck restoring lost function by transplanting nose nerve cells, which can regenerate, into the spinal cords of paralyzed dogs.
But the German team bypassed the spine entirely and went directly to the brain.
They genetically altered a naturally occurring protein that fosters communication among cells so that the protein would spark nerve cell regeneration. Then they injected the protein directly into the motor-control portion of the brains in mice whose spinal cords had been crushed, completely paralyzing their rear legs. 
After two to three weeks, the mice were walking normally on all fours again.
The brain not only began producing the designer protein but also passed instructions to make it down through the body’s neural network. The instructions reached the spinal cord and its branch nerves and caused the network to repair or replace the spinal cord’s damaged nerves. 
The German scientists now are testing how long after the injury the treatment will work.
While Bochum’s researchers were publishing their findings, a group at the University of California at Los Angeles was showing another way to help spinal cords knit themselves back together.
The California bioscientists injected the spinal cord injury site in mice with a microscopic scaffold made of hyaluronic acid, which occurs naturally throughout the body and retains moisture in tissues.
The researchers loaded pores in the scaffold with genes that foster the creation of  “brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF),” a protein that makes new nerve cells.
Eight weeks after the injection, the scientists found that the damaged spinal cords had made notable progress in repairing themselves compared to mice that had received the scaffold but no genes to make BDNF.
TRENDPOST: The new work hints at ways in which humans who’ve lost control over their legs might regain it, as well as new approaches to treating neural degenerative diseases, designing prosthetic devices, and even brain-machine interfaces.
By mid-century, paraplegia – loss of the use of legs – is likely to be a reversible condition.
Photo credit: Ruhr University Bochum

Comments are closed.