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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."
Is this the 20th time I've read about this "new" development in the past year, or is this really something different than all the other times rats were made to walk again after a spinal cord break?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
And to think, all this time the secret was lying right behind the television.
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Something about this treatment... doesn't it make you nervous?
They coaxed, did they? Persuaded, gradually and by flattery, to do something?... ooooooh.. you are such a nice nerve... you put other nerves to shame.... Oh comon just regrow a bit!! Just a tiny bit!! You look so great when you regrow....
Honestly the nerve... flattery gets you nowhere.
I, for one, welcome our new neural-regnerating rodent overlords...
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.
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Scientists from the Cowboy Neal Temporal Institute released a study in which stories posted to Slashdot transported themselves almost a month into the future. This research is preliminary, but Dr. Neal hopes that someday soon, we will be able to read about the moon landing, Columbus's voyages, and even the birth of the Universe as they happened.
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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?
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Ever since 1983 when my spinal cord was injured, I've heard over and over that a "cure" is only 5 years away. I'll belive it when I see it.
Nerves don't transmit electricity per say, the transmission happens through a progression of chemicals being dumped from an axon and a in flux of ions from outside coming in which cause a similar reaction down the line at another membrane gate on the axon. Its an elctrochemical reaction that carries the signal in a axon.
(My biology is a little rusty, so maybe someone can better explain it.)
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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.
As vix86 points out, it's not the electrical signals that matter. The human nervous system is not based on electricity, but on ions; the application of electricity to the skin will cause those ions to move, since they're charged particles, but the nervous system itself is purely chemical. For one thing, it doesn't have any closed circuits - the nerve system is entirely radiative, pointing outwards but with no equivalents of wires that come back. What matters here is the synapses. When these are ripped out of place by medical trauma, it's damn hard to fit them back together again - in the rest of the body, it works, but in the spinal cord there's other cells present that effectively inhibit this healing.
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Actually, it's electro-chemical. Signal transmission along the axon works by having a depolarized zone travelling down the axon. The depolarization happens electrically, this is why having a myelin sheath around the axon will speed up signal transmission (the depolarization can "skip" the parts of the axon covered by the myelin sheath).
Signal transmission between two nerve cells is a chemical process that happens in the synaptic cleft, involving neurotransmitters and enzymes to break them down.
What matters here is the synapses. When these are ripped out of place by medical trauma, it's damn hard to fit them back together again - in the rest of the body, it works, but in the spinal cord there's other cells present that effectively inhibit this healing.
Actually, no, the synapses are not the biggest problem. They're simply a connection between two cells that can be reformed fairly easily (nerve cells have a natural tendency to try to establish meaningful connections with other nerve cells). The big problem is having nerve fibers that are cut - the usual healing process of the body consists of disposing of damaged cells and replacing them with newly formed cells. This obviously doesn't work with neurons as they usually cannot be re-grown. Therefore, if a neuron is damaged, it has to be _repaired_, not _replaced_, and this is the hard part.
GreyPoopon
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cells is outdated. I am not an expert, but more and more I hear of different results, e.g. here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s59648. htm
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.
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