Scientists Coax Nerve Fibers To Regrow

Malthooslie writes to tell us ScienceDaily is reporting that scientists have managed to regrow nerve fibers after a spinal injury. Using an enzyme called sialidase, isolated from bacteria, researchers were able to stimulate nerve fiber growth in rats. From the article: "While surgeons can sometimes reattach the yanked nerves to the spinal cord, this treatment is not as effective as physicians or patients would like. This is in part because nerves in the brain and spinal cord, unlike those in the rest of the body, fail to grow new nerve fibers. Nerves in the brain and spinal cord are surrounded by signals from other cells in the injured area that stop them from growing."

Comments

Can it help Multiple Sclerosis?

[HTMLSpinnr]

I wonder if this could at all help existing nerves regenerate after damage caused by diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. While MS symptoms are a result of the mylin sheath being attacked rather than nerves being detatched, the end result is ultimately the same as the disease progresses - partial or total loss of nerve function in one or more regions of the body. If nerves can be encouraged to grow, it'd be great if they could be encouraged to repair as well.

Re:Can it help Multiple Sclerosis?

[JMemmert]

Unlikely. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder, and even if new nerves could be generated, they would be just as susceptible to attack by the host immune system.

I agree. It would not have a lasting effect. But repairing existing damage, even if not a permanent effect, would greatly reduce the damage done by the flare-ups.
For patients of both the relapsing-remitting and progressive form of MS, a treatment that would reduce the retained damage would be very helpful.
Patients who can, depending on the degree of the MS, suffer greatly in terms of reduced motor functions and control, for instance, would welcome a treatment that restores their motor skills.
However, causing the growth of nerves where there were none is, to me, significantly different from repairing existing nerves and the mechanisms to do that seem to be quite different.
The Wikipedia article on this describes the damage repair mechanism as follows:

The oligodendrocytes that originally formed a myelin sheath cannot completely rebuild a destroyed myelin sheath. However, the brain can recruit stem cells, which migrate from other unknown regions of the brain, differentiate into mature oligodendrocytes, and rebuild the myelin sheath.

This indicates a completely different mechanism as in this research and I find it doubtful that there would be synergy effects. But I am not a doctor. Unfortunately. :-(

Man with Two Brains

[Doc Ruby]

You know, I remember when that summary would have said "nerves, unlike other cells, don't regrow when damaged". Now it's just brain/spinal nerves, not growing fibers, which an enzyme can fix.

How long before I can backup my mind in a spare brain, and go back to partying like when I was a kid? When nerves didn't regenerate, and I was too dumb to care?

Signal to grow is there for the looking

[__aazdqt2542]

When lesioning mice experimentally, it was found that only early in development could spinal cords regrow. The older the beast, the less function could be expected. Since chemical signals surround adult nerve fibers preventing their re-growth, change the chemical bath. This is such an obvious tack, that it is just downright criminal that it is not being followed up. Developmentally, nerve fibers grown into everything early in life, it is only later that the extra nerves die off. So how do you fix damaged CNS nerves? Find out what differences exist between fetal and 3 month old and infuse the area with the fetal bath. What are the most blatently obvious? Blood, hello! Fetal hemoglobin disappears in correlation to the neural die off, along with other choice proteins. Experiment: Does a fetal circulation enable CNS lesion healing? Provide a fetal-type circulation to an affected area, then see. Sure, fetal circulation to CNS lesions might involve some interesting, even controversial plumbing, but the idea is sound.

WTF???

[Unknown Poltroon]

I read about them doing this 10 fucking years ago, only it was dogs. Inject the shit into some people already!!!!

And yes, I am a little pissed off at how slow and screwed up the FDA and AMA are. Stevia is bad, but have some more ritalin children.