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

Headline

[Concerned Onlooker]

And to think, all this time the secret was lying right behind the television.

They coaxed?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:They coaxed?

[PieSquared]

1 To persuade or try to persuade by pleading or flattery; cajole. 2 To obtain by persistent persuasion: coaxed the secret out of the child. 3 Obsolete. To caress; fondle. 4 To move to or adjust toward a desired end: "A far more promising approach to treating advanced melanoma is to coax the immune system to recognize melanoma cells as deadly" (Natalie Angier). See #4. Also please learn all the meanings of a word before trying to make fun of someone for improper usage

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?

[Tim]

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.

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. :-(

Scientists coax /. stories forward in time

[davidwr]

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.

Yawn

[Noodles]

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.

Re:Why not artificial nerve fiber ?

[Ihlosi]

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.

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.