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Regenerated Nerve Cells Let Rats Walk Again
SteamyMobile writes "Paralysis by spinal cord injuries through accidents must be one of the most horrible life-altering experiences imaginable, often affecting young, active people, and so far there has been no effective treatment of it. Researchers at the Miami School of Medicine have found a therapy involving regenerating nerve cells to cross the gap in the spinal cord. 70% of rats could walk again after the therapy. Hopefully this could benefit Christopher Reeves and thousands of others who have had their lives changed so much by spinal injuries."
i dont mean to nitpick but the gentlemans name is Reeve. no 's' on the end.
the site you linked to makes that pretty clear.
Just a heads-up on an error in the summary: the Wired articles states than (all) the rats which received the combination treatment regained 70% of their walking function, not that 70% of the injured rats became able to walk.
Given that the improvement was over a period of just eight weeks, this is possibly even more promising than the mangled statistic in the summary.
"Moo, Moo. Moo Moo Moo Moo" (Translation: "Sorry, my bad.")
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
...often affecting young, active people...
Actually Im a big dork and sustained a fairly dork-related injury which this could help. During finals of my senior year I stressed myself out so badly that I incurred the wrath of Ramsey-Hunt syndrome - think of it like chicken pox in your brain. It cuts off the cranial facial nerve and paralyzes one side of your face. The nerve regrows but is almost never 100% again. Id love to get this fixed so my smile won't be so f*ed up anymore. I only hope when this technology hits the open market it's not tens of thousands of dollars and will work on non-spinal nerves.
A rat can carry around a kilo when it is healthy. I would assume that these 70% rehabilitated lab rats can carry 700 grams. Assuming Chris has lost some weight since the fall and he now weighs 70 kilos, it will only take the combined effort of 100 of these rats for him to walk again!
Throw in one 'super rat' that tells the other rats what to do, and Segway has some serious competition...
This is far different from the stem cell research sung about. This is taking healthy Schwann cells from peripheral nerves which regrow which can be taken from the same animal. I don't see how there is really any ethical problem here.
Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
The original research mentioned in the article was done in the hospital where I work, and I become very familiar with the material - I made the Flash-driven CD-ROM press release (first time I used Flash video) :-) . Since I come from a life sciences background, it didn't go whooshing over my head. Bottom line: this sort of treatment, if the patients are to have any chance of succeess, must be used within about 30 days of the injury occurring. Superman will not fly.
The treatment still hasn't been used to treat spinal cord damage in humans. Phase 1 trials (where they see if there are any negative effects from the treatment) were carried out in our hospital last year. It'll be a while before they move on to Phase 2.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
But then again he wiggled a toe and breathes on his own now so i might be wrong.
Wow Jon. I'm 110% serious when I say I never noticed it in the two years I've been working at ResNet with you (this is A.J.)... See you at work sometime...
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Why not protest rat poison before research? I'm just guessing rat posion kills a hell of alot more rats than research.
If I could get out of this chair I would kick your ass up and down Main Street.
Does this treatment work in the brain as well? Can it help Bush?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
>somebody had to cut the spinal cords of those rats in the first place for the experiments... and then they were killed to examine the results
Duh! They're RATS, not human beings. Without animal testing of drugs and surgical techniques, life would still be pretty damn medeival. If you want to go back to the days when people loved having hordes of rats in their dwellings and you got burned at the stake as a witch if you kept a cat, please do, but do it on some other continent from the one I live on.>Please remember this and ponder if the ends justify the means.
It is good to keep this in mind, and I strongly oppose cruelty to animals, but in the case of biomedical research, the ends absolutely justify the means.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.