The initial trial of a controversial method for treating spinal cord injuries within two weeks of an accident suggests it may be partly successful. More patients recovered some sensation and movement than would normally be expected, the company behind the trial claims. Independent experts say the results look promising, but caution that with just 16 people treated so far, it is too early to draw any conclusions. Some worry that the technique is risky and could cause serious problems in the long term. The method involves extracting immune cells from a patient's blood, "activating" them by incubating them with skin cells, and then injecting the cells directly into the damaged spinal cord. This must all be done within 14 days of the injury, so even if larger trials confirm its benefits, the method will not help the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide with existing injuries. The technique is being developed by ProNeuron Biotechnologies of Los Angeles, California, which has just submitted results from the first 10 patients for publication. All patients fell into the most severe spinal injury category, called ASIA-A. This is defined as having no sensation or ability to move below the site of injury. Normal sensation and movement is defined as ASIA-E. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 5654 - Posted: 06.24.2010

MIAMI -- Rats with spinal cord injuries regained 70 percent of their normal walking function with a three-part treatment hailed as a breakthrough in paralysis research at the University of Miami School of Medicine. The study at the university's Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, to be published on Monday in the June issue of the journal Nature Medicine, produced results "by far greater than what we've seen in anything else," said the principal researcher, Dr. Mary Bartlett Bunge. "It opens up a potential new avenue of treatment for human spinal cord injury," said Bunge, who declined to speculate when human trials might be attempted. The spinal cord carries messages between the brain and the muscles through a network of nerve cells. Normally, chemical signals prevent those nerves from regrowing, resulting in paralysis when the network is severed by an injury. Regrowing nerve cells and reconnecting them is the holy grail of spinal cord research. © Copyright 2004, Lycos, Inc.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 5559 - Posted: 06.24.2010

'Liquid' bridge could help severed nerve cells grow. HELEN R. PILCHER It may well be the smallest scaffolding in the world, and the easiest to set up. Researchers have devised a tiny self-assembling structure that they hope will help repair damaged spinal cords. Every year in the United States alone, about 15,000 people damage their spines. Few recover fully as it is difficult for damaged nerves to grow across the gap in a severed spinal cord. Researchers have tried to build bridges across these gaps, so that nerves can grow. Most of these are made out of a solid material such as collagen, but require invasive surgery that can cause extra trauma to the injury. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 4857 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Paralysed patients are looking to scientists working on spinal-cord regeneration to help them walk again. HELEN PEARSON It was a miracle of almost biblical proportions. In 1998, scientists in Israel revealed that rats whose spinal cords had been severed had walked again after an injection of healing immune cells called macrophages1. Their hopes buoyed by enthusiastic media coverage, paralysed patients began to dream of taking their own tentative steps. Five years on, the status of those dreams remains unclear. Proneuron Biotechnologies, a Los Angeles-based company founded on the back of the research of lead investigator Michal Schwartz at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, is expected soon to release the results of an initial trial of the procedure on eight patients with spinal injuries. Media reports have indicated that some patients have recovered some feeling and movement, but many researchers do not expect a repeat of the rodent miracle. Indeed, they claim that at least one group has since tried, and failed, to reproduce Schwartz's original animal results. Schwartz's study is not alone in this regard. Over the past few years, scientists working on spinal-cord repair have revealed encouraging results on several occasions, only to find that other groups have struggled to recreate the same outcome. Three papers published in Neuron2-4 last month underline the point, reporting contradictory findings in parallel studies of 'knockout' mice lacking proteins that are believed to be among the main inhibitors of nerve growth in the spinal cord. "Reproducibility has been a major problem in spinal-cord injury," says Oswald Steward, director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 3878 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Molecules behind left-right generator might help spinal cord treatments. HELEN PEARSON Thanks to a mouse that jumps like a kangaroo, researchers have discovered two molecules that drive the ability to walk. They hope that similar results might eventually help people to recover from spinal-cord injuries. Many animals' spinal cords house a circuit called the central pattern generator (CPG), which triggers legs to perform a left-right gait. Some therapies for partially paralysed patients attempt to stimulate the CPG by supporting them over a treadmill and sending electrical pulses to the spine. But exactly which nerves are involved, and how they work, has been unclear. For Klas Kullander, of Gothenburg University in Sweden, and his colleagues, the clue came from mice genetically engineered to lack two molecules called ephrinB3 and EphA4. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 3: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 2: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Link ID: 3594 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Can bone marrow seed the brain with fresh neurons? BY EMILY SOHN The healing promise of stem cells is one of medicine's bright hopes. But the field needs some healing itself. It is beset by controversy because stem cells able to develop into every kind of tissue come from discarded embryos. What if adults had their own reserves of universal cells? Now comes the latest hint that they do: evidence that stem cells from adult bone marrow can turn into brain cells. If it holds up, the finding might lead to new techniques for treating brain injury and diseases like Alzheimer's, without the ethical baggage of embryo cells. But the study has also inflamed a debate over what adult stem cells can and cannot do. In test tubes, mice, and even some human studies, bone marrow stem cells have seemed to turn into tissues including liver, heart, skin, and lung, although other groups have often failed to replicate the findings. Two years ago, researchers also showed that in mice, marrow stem cells could become brain cells. Copyright © 2003 U.S. News & World Report

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3386 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Seven years after actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from a spinal cord injury, tests show his brain has maintained a near-normal ability to detect feeling and direct movement. The finding suggests the "use it or lose it" rule may not apply to the brain after all, experts say. By Brian Branch-Price, AP Years of research has shown in animals that when the spinal cord is severed, cutting off signals to parts of the brain, then the brain will reorganize itself and eventually not respond to signals from the paralyzed part of the body. But a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis using a MRI technique shows that may not be true for Reeve. "We see evidence of some reorganization in this patient," said Dr. Maurizio Corbetta, a Washington University neurology researcher. "But we also see strong evidence for stability ... which goes against the principle of 'use it or lose it.'" Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 3143 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Beam could help repair spine damage or wire up implants. PHILIP BALL A laser beam can guide nerve cells to grow in a particular direction, researchers have shown. The technique might help damaged nerves to regrow or could connect them to electronic implants, such as artificial retinas and prosthetic limbs. Rat and mouse nerve cells growing over a glass plate take the path pointed out by a red laser, report Allen Ehrlicher, of the University of Leipzig in Germany, and colleagues1. The cells move towards the spot of laser light, travelling as if down a gentle slope, they think. Moreover, the laser does not harm the cells, the researchers report, even if it leads them along a zigzag. Normally, cells don't like making sharp turns; forced to do so, they soon try to straighten out. Previous attempts to guide cells in channels or on adhesive tracks damaged their delicate walls. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3085 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Topic Editor: John F. Alksne, M.D Table of Contents 1. The role of cell therapy for stroke. Douglas Kondziolka, Lawrence Wechsler, Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara, and Cristian Achim 2. Role of cell therapy in Parkinson disease. Olle Lindvall and Peter Hagell 3. Status of fetal tissue transplantation for the treatment of advanced Parkinson disease. Paul E. Greene and Stanley Fahn 4. Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor-supplemented hibernation of fetal ventral mesencephalic neurons for transplantation in Parkinson disease: long-term storage. Adam O. Hebb, Kari Hebb, Arun C. Ramachandran, and Ivar Mendez 5. Growth factor gene therapy for Alzheimer disease. Mark H. Tuszynski, Hoi Sang U, John Alksne, Roy A. Bakay, Mary Margaret Pay, David Merrill, and Leon J. Thal Copyright© 1998-2002; American Association of Neurological Surgeons

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Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 3011 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Protein cocktail persuades stem-cell grafts to become neurons. MICHAEL STEBBINS A simple protein shake coaxes human neural stem cells from fetuses to develop into proper neurons when implanted into live animals' brain or spinal cord. The technique jumps an important hurdle on the path to stem-cell therapies. To fix neurodegenerative diseases and repair spinal-cord injuries, new neurons must grow in the place of the damaged ones. Unfortunately, most engrafted neural stem cells either don't develop, or turn into support cells rather than neurons, even though they have the potential to grow into any type of cell. "We used proteins involved in the development of neurons to point them in the right direction before they are engrafted," says team member Ping Wu of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. "So what is happening to the cells is natural for them." © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 2979 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Like the beams in a house infested with termites, certain neurons in people with Parkinson's disease slowly disintegrate, causing muscle tremors and stiffness. Now, researchers have repaired such degenerating neurons in mice using stem cells. The results could eventually lead to better treatments for humans. People with Parkinson's disease slowly lose a group of neurons that help coordinate body movement. These neurons reside in a brain region called the substantia nigra and use dopamine to communicate with each other. Neuroscientists had previously used neural stem cells to replace dead neurons in brains with other kinds of damage, so neurobiologist Evan Snyder of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues reasoned that neural stem cells could replace the dopamine neurons in mice with a Parkinson's-like condition. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2809 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers receive grant to use robots to improve walking Irvine, Calif., Paralysis from spinal cord injury was significantly reversed by adding tiny nerves from the rib cage and mixing them with a powerful growth inducer found in most nerve cells, a UC Irvine and Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center study has found. The study, conducted in rats, suggests that nerve cells can be inserted and stimulated to grow through damaged areas of the spinal cord, perhaps leading to better treatments for spinal cord injury. The research is part of a wave of studies challenging the conventional wisdom that severed nerves in the spinal cord are nearly impossible to regenerate. The study appears in the October issue of the Journal of Neurotrauma. Dr. Vernon Lin, professor of physical medicine at UCI and director of the Spinal Cord Injury Group at the Long Beach V.A., and his colleagues found that grafting nerves from the rib cage and adding the growth stimulator, a molecule called aFGF, partially restored hind leg movement in rats that had their spinal cords severed. © Copyright 2002 UC Regents

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 2764 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer LOS ANGELES - An experimental nerve-graft surgery allowed a paraplegic woman whose spinal cord was severed in an automobile accident to reacquire limited use of her legs, an Italian doctor reported this week at a conference in California. In a 14-hour surgery performed in July 2000, Dr. Giorgio Brunelli, of the Universita' di Brescia, Italy, removed a portion of the 28-year-old's sciatic nerve and used it as a graft to connect the undamaged portion of her spine to muscles in her buttocks and thighs. He said the graft allowed the regrowth of nerves connected to the central nervous system into the muscle tissue. The unidentified patient first showed movement in her legs in September and since has begun walking with assistance, Brunelli said. The woman had used a wheelchair for five years prior to the surgery. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2561 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Two men paralysed on one side of their body can walk again, thanks to an ingenious implant that uses signals from a healthy leg to control a paralysed one. Both men, aged 47 and 64, had been paralysed by strokes. Previously neither could walk unaided. But after sensors were placed over certain muscle groups on the healthy leg and stimulators implanted in the paralysed leg, they can now walk, stand and sit. The unique therapy allows a patient to move their paralysed leg in a natural way without being aware that they are doing it, says Wenwei Yu, who developed the technique at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. But it could be another five years or more before the technology becomes available, he says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2550 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Nerve cells extracted from a patient's own nose could one day be used to cure paralysis. At least, that is the hope of neuroscientists in Australia who have announced the beginning of tests on people. The team, led by Alan Mackay-Sim of Griffith University in Brisbane, has recruited three people who have been paralysed from the waist down for between six months and three years, and plans to enlist another five. Half the patients will receive a spinal injection of the nasal cells. The cells, called olfactory ensheathing cells, connect the lining of the nose with the brain, giving us our sense of smell. Unlike most nerve cells, they continue to regenerate throughout life, a property that probably evolved because they can be destroyed by infections. "There's only a few microns of mucus between the air and the nerve endings," points out Mackay-Sim. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 2303 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 United Press International BALTIMORE, - Scientists announced Wednesday they have figured out a new way to get nerve cells to regenerate in the laboratory and have come one step closer to being able to repair spinal cord injuries - although that prospect remains years away. "For the first time in history there is some optimism that we may be able to get functional recovery of spinal cord injuries," Ronald L. Schnaar, co-author of the study and professor of pharmacology and of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, told United Press International. "Whether it's this decade or next decade, I think we'll begin to see this knowledge turned into therapies." Schnaar and colleagues at the University of Hamburg, Germany, discovered how to modulate a molecular signal that inhibits the regeneration of nerve cells after they are damaged. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2251 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Francesco Fiondella, BioMedNet News When nerves are severed by spinal cord injury, a tangle of long and branched molecules forms around them like "overgrown shrubbery," as one expert puts it, and prevents the damaged fibers from regenerating. Researchers now say that selectively pruning this molecular growth with chemicals results in "modest but significant" nerve regeneration in rat models, according to published and unpublished findings presented this week. A class of molecules known as chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans (CSPGs), a protein called Nogo, and another called myelin associated glycoprotein (MAG) are among the most studied of this molecular shrubbery shown to inhibit nerve regeneration. © Elsevier Science Limited 2002

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 1930 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bacterial enzyme chews through nerve growth barrier. HELEN PEARSON An enzyme that clears a path for growing nerves can help damaged spinal cord to repair itself, researchers have found. The enzyme could one day help to treat paralysing injuries, in conjunction with other therapies. Damaged nerves in the spinal cord do not normally recover. The surrounding cells multiply to form a dense scar, and secrete a thicket of barrier molecules that nerves cannot cross. Like a miniature lawnmower, the bacterial enzyme chondroitinase ABC trims back these obstructing molecules, Elizabeth Bradbury of King's College London and her team have shown1. Rats with damaged spinal cords injected with the enzyme partly recover from their injury. * Bradbury, E. J. Chondrotinase ABC promotes functional recovery after spinal cord injury. Nature, 416, 636, (2002). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1851 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Study in rats points to potential human therapy By Nicolle Charbonneau HealthScoutNews Reporter A study by British researchers reports that rats with partial spinal cord injuries regained neurological function and their ability to walk normally after treatment with the enzyme, known as chondroitinase ABC (ChABC). Their findings appear in tomorrow's issue of Nature. While previous research had shown this enzyme could make nerve fibers regenerate in the brain, co-author Dr. James W. Fawcett, a professor at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Brain Repair, says this study is the first demonstration of the enzyme's effect on the spinal cord. SOURCES: James W. Fawcett, M.D., Ph.D., professor, Department of Physiology, Centre for Brain Repair, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England; Lars Olson, Ph.D., professor, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; April 11, 2002, Nature Copyright © 2002 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1844 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An injectable hydrogel could aid recovery from brain injury by helping stimulate tissue growth at the site of the wound, researchers say. Research on rats suggests the gel, made from synthetic and natural sources, may spur growth of stem cells in the brain. The gel has been developed by Dr Ning Zhang at Clemson University, South Carolina, who presented her work to a conference on military health research. She predicted the gel may be ready for human testing in about three years. Following a brain injury the tissues tend to swell up and this causes the loss of even more cells, compounding the damage caused by the original wound. The standard treatments attempt to minimise this secondary damage at the site of the injury, for instance by lowering the temperature or relieving the build up of pressure. However, their impact is often limited. Scientists believe that transplanting donor brain cells into the wound to repair tissue damage is potentially a more productive approach. But while this method has had some success in treating some central nervous system diseases, it has produced very limited results when used to treat brain injuries. The donor cells do not tend to thrive at the site of injury, or to stimulate repair. This could be due to inflammation and scarring at the injury site, and the lack of supportive tissue and blood supply to provide the necessary nutrients. Researchers say the advantage of the new gel, which is injected into the injury in liquid form, is that it can be loaded with different chemicals to stimulate various biological processes. (C)BBC

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 13237 - Posted: 09.03.2009