Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Scientists Restore Walking After Spinal Cord Injury

Posted by kdawson on from the man-who-mistook-his-legs-for-a-pair-of-scissors dept.

Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. The lead researcher said, "This pessimistic view [that severe injury to the spinal cord means permanent paralysis] has changed over my lifetime, and our findings add to a growing body of research showing that the nervous system can reorganize after injury."

5 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. 1st p0st by Atti+K. · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    sorry, i had to do it. i'm new here.

    --
    .sig: No such file or directory
  2. Re:Good news for paraplegic mice! by Gordonjcp · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's not a baby until it's born. A foetus is no more alive than a tumour.

  3. Re:Anecdote by turing_m · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is similar to an experiment where people were made to wear lenses that turned everything upside down. After a while, they started seeing everything the right way again. Different I/O port but same phenomenon.

    http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae353.cfm

    --
    If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
  4. Re:Finally, some good news! by Himring · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Reminds of Red Buttons on Dennis Miller (when he was on HBO). The subject was about being old and Buttons came on after Miller's classic rant. Miller says, "so you're here to represent the old...." Buttons starts with "oh, I'm not old. Old is when your wife asks you to go up stairs and have sex and you say, 'well, make up your mind. I can't do both.'"

    He then rattles off joke after joke and Miller is in tears. Then this guy calls in and says, "why can women get their tits done, but a guy can't get his hair done?" Without missing a beat Buttons says, "I once had the hair on my tits done." Miller is dying....

    K, I'm done....

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  5. plus 1, trol7) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    we 8ned to address walk up to a play influence, the marketing surveys Opinion in other If you answered have an IRC client ALIKE TO REAP states that there