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Damaged Spinal Cord "Rewires" Itself With Help of Electrical Stimulation

Posted by timothy on from the just-spread-on-some-stem-cells dept.

the_newsbeagle writes: Many prior experiments that tried to restore function after a spinal cord injury have used electrical stimulation to replace the signals from the brain, essentially implanting a replacement nervous system. But a new project instead used electrical stimulation to encourage the natural nervous system to adapt to a severe injury. When researchers repeatedly jolted a rat's damaged spinal cord at the precise moment that it tried to move a paralyzed limb, its nervous system developed new neural pathways that detoured around the site of injury in the spine. Researchers don't think it grew new neurons, but think instead that new connections formed between surviving neurons.

30 comments

  1. Mary Shelly was right after all? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    Frankenstein.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    1. Re:Mary Shelly was right after all? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      You know, since Galvani discovered you could make a dead frog twitch with electricity, people have been looking for the magical properties of electricity. The sheer amount of quackery involving electricity is mind boggling

      Nerves and neurons are, essentially, little electrical connections.

      So, yeah, I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised by that.

      Or that there's actually some useful things which can come out of it too.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Mary Shelly was right after all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "So, yeah, I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised by that."

      Because we've had electricity for 250 years to toy with and thus far it's major uses with the human body until recently were electroshock therapy and executions (and torture).

    3. Re:Mary Shelly was right after all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because we've had electricity for 250 years to toy with and thus far it's major uses with the human body until recently were electroshock therapy and executions (and torture).

      Not to mention pacemakers, cochlear implants, defibrillators, EKGs, TENS and vagus nerve stimulation. And those are just the ones that I've heard about.

  2. What Fires Together Wires Together by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm glad the medical industry is starting to catch up with the sex industry. People into advanced sexual practices already know if you stimulate another part of the body in the same way and time as you stimulate your genitals you'll eventually be able to orgasm from just stimulating that other part of your body.

    The brain can adapt to almost anything as long as there's a feedback loop. Adding the electrical stimulation greatly enhances that feedback loop. Think of carving out a stream with a trickle of water vs a pressurized hose. Of course there's a difference between thinking you know something and scientifically proving it. Good for them.

  3. "The Body Electric" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That book by Robert Becker published in 1985 already demonstrated regrowth of limbs by electric stimulation.

  4. Quackery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is nonsense. Everyone knows the only cure for a damaged spine is to hang from a rope while an old man punches you in the back.

    1. Re:Quackery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the only cure for a damaged spine is to hang from a rope while an old man punches you in the back

      That doesn't sound right, at all.

  5. See your honor? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was just helping when I was electrocuting that old paraplegic man!

    1. Re:See your honor? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you considered a career in law enforcement, young man?

  6. Ending with speculation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Instead of speculating how about doing research and proving a hypothesis? You know, in the interest of science and all.
    "Researchers don't think it grew new neurons, but think instead that new connections formed between surviving neurons."

    1. Re:Ending with speculation. by Chikungunya · · Score: 1

      Maybe because it takes a higher amount of time, money and expertise to explain it? There is value in describing something that nobody else has tried, even if only to direct people with more resources to work in that.

  7. Could this be combined with Pig Bladder Powder? by macs4all · · Score: 2

    There is a recent story about a man regrowing a chopped-off fingertip (bone, flesh, fingernail, even fingerprint!) when he put some "extracellular matrix" derived from pig bladder tissue (which is normally a waste product) onto his fingertip-stub.

    So, I wonder if this would work with spinal-cord injuries, and possibly enhanced with electrical stimulation.

    1. Re:Could this be combined with Pig Bladder Powder? by HuntingHades · · Score: 2

      The challenge there is actually getting the extra cellular matrix into the spinal cord while avoiding infection and other possible complications.

    2. Re:Could this be combined with Pig Bladder Powder? by macs4all · · Score: 1

      The challenge there is actually getting the extra cellular matrix into the spinal cord while avoiding infection and other possible complications.

      I'm not sure what infections there would be; the extracellular matrix is sterile (I think). As for "other complications", perhaps this could even be done laproscopically, to minimize intrusion/complications.

    3. Re:Could this be combined with Pig Bladder Powder? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The one has nothing really to do with the other.
      The extracellular matrix apparently regrows cells. The electrical stimulation encourages neurons (single cells) to grow and route around damage.
      The difficulty in dealing with spinal/neural damage is that once a neuron is dead, it can't normally be replaced. There are some advancements in stem cell research which show promise, but the "rewiring" of the spinal cord isn't actually replacing dead neurons.
      I suspect the tests in this case involve severing the spinal cord in the rats, and then repairing the damage. In that case there is still living neural tissue in the rat's legs which the living neuron can route and reattach to. It's not growing a long neuron down into the leg but simply routing over a few millimeters of damage. This could potentially help patients who have recent spinal trauma, but it'll do nothing for people who have suffered spinal injuries more than a month or so old.

    4. Re:Could this be combined with Pig Bladder Powder? by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

      Highly doubtful. Extra-cellular matrix derived from pig's bladder (referred to by researchers as "pixie dust") is essentially collagen, and retards the scarring process that ends skin and sub-dermal tissue regeneration. This is not the same, though, as encouraging neurons to regenerate or even just to rewire.

      --
      *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  8. Oh for fucks sake... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I first read about this fifteen years ago. Yes, spinal cord damage can be mitigated by encouraging the body to rewire the remaining, working bits. They've done it with drugs, electricity, etc. And yet, nobody has done anything useful with this information.

    1. Re:Oh for fucks sake... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      I don't normally respond to ACs, but I think it was even more than 15 years ago that I saw my grandfather using an electro-stimulation system.

      My grandfather has spinal damage from both polio and industrial accident. The stimulation system was intended to do much what the Op proposes, and I think it was closer to 25 years ago that I saw him using it.

      Now, the 'giving the shock just as you attempt to use it' is a new bit. I think gramps just turned it on for a prescribed period.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    2. Re:Oh for fucks sake... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Different treatment. Your grandfather would have used electrical stimulation pads on his extremities. EMS treatments like this are to preserve muscle tissue while the body works to repair damage, and don't directly help so much as limit the wasting that would otherwise occur from the spinal damage.
      This experiment involves direct electrical stimulation to the spine, which is entirely different.

  9. Head Transplant in 2017 by KatchooNJ · · Score: 1

    I sure hope they find some serious advancements in this before that guy gets his head transplant in 2017, which was announced just the other day.

    --
    "Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
  10. Sucks for the rat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is why I hope we never encounter extraterrestrial intelligence... if they're half the dicks to us as we are to our "lesser" species, we're fucked.

  11. Personal Experience by ToxicBanjo · · Score: 1

    Although not scientifically documented as such I can personally confirm this appears to be the case.

    After I damaged my spinal cord I had to take a series of tests to verify my nerve conductivity and signal strength was okay. I took these tests over a year and my last series showed, without a doubt, that my nerves had created new connections to essentially get around the damaged areas. I had regained signal strength.

    I didn't have stimulation, just the testing so I think in my case it was just regular healing, but if there is a way to stimulate and increase the effects then awesome, I wish I had that opportunity! Anyone with a back injury will probably agree, we'd do just about anything to get our health on track again.

    --
    There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
    1. Re:Personal Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. The body can heal around spinal/neural damage, though it's very hit-and-miss and generally there's not a complete healing. Like in your experience though, the body can naturally regain some signal strength and function depending on the severity of the damage and how soon it is treated.
      Direct spinal electrical stimulation sounds like agony though. We'll have to see if this treatment is promising enough to eventually reach human trials.

    2. Re:Personal Experience by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Yep. The body can heal around spinal/neural damage, though it's very hit-and-miss and generally there's not a complete healing. Like in your experience though, the body can naturally regain some signal strength and function depending on the severity of the damage and how soon it is treated.
      Direct spinal electrical stimulation sounds like agony though. We'll have to see if this treatment is promising enough to eventually reach human trials.

      Well I'd take short term pain vs long term pain which is what I have now, if it could have done more to repair the damage to my spine. Back ~5-6 years ago I broke my C2 and C3, and though a hell of a lot of physio, and plain old determination I'm back to about 75-80% of where I was then. Can't run anymore though, I can walk and well. Can't do pullups or pushups anymore either, and the pain...well I'd say that it's bad. It's not as bad as when I had testicular torsion which I'd rank at a 10, this is about a 7-9 most days. And considering I eat narcotic painkillers and muscle relaxants for when the spasms start, I'd take anything over that if there was even a painful treatment in the short term.

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      Om, nomnomnom...
  12. What is old is new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is that all we can do now, keep re-inventing the wheel? Dr Becker was doing this 30 years ago.

    We are doomed as a species if this is the best we can do.

  13. Why is it always the rats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The rats and mice always seem to get the best experimental medicine, its about time they started doing something for humans with spinal injurys for a change instead of the damn rodents.

  14. Old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's plenty of studies:

    http://j-workout.com/thesis/pdf/role_of_fes_overview.pdf

    This is reminiscent of nasal stem cell studies. Every five or so years a new study comes out, that actually seems to regress how well we're doing.

  15. Nerve regrowth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/trs/_techrep/TP-2003-212054.pdf

    It is possible to stimulate the growth of new nerve tissue per the above NASA study, They also show genetic changes in the cells after stimulation. This was not in vivo though.

    This study is a bit more convincing for in vivo use, I tried to tell this to my Dr. uncle who developed ALS, but he would not listen. Two weeks after emailing him this study he pulled the plug.
    http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4615-4867-6_213
    If you look at the above link and click on "look inside" you will be able to read 2/3 of the article outlining low frequency pulsed magnetic fields being used in the treatment of ALS resulting in substantial recoveries.