Paralyzed rats run again: Could method help humans?
Paralyzed rats run again: Could method help humans?
Paralyzed rats learned to walk, run and spring deftly over obstacles after they were put on a physical training regimen that included electrical and chemical stimulation of their broken spinal columns and a “robotic postural interface,” a new study reveals.
The study, published Thursday in Science, suggests that for humans with spinal cord injury, the trick to regaining lost movement may lie not in regeneration of the severed spinal cord, but in inducing the brain and spinal cord to forge wholly new paths toward each other. The Swiss authors liken that process to the way that infants, their nervous systems incomplete and learning by experience, sync up their brains and limbs so they can progressively crawl, stand, walk and play.
All told, 250,000 Americans live with spinal cord injury, and just over half -- 52% -- are paraplegic. Each year, 11,000 new injuries occur--overwhelming in young males.
In this study, coaxing that neural reinvention along took four key components: a soup of neurotransmitters — serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine -- injected into the epidural space; a set of electrodes supplying a continuous flow of electrical energy near the site of the break in the spinal cord; a rehabilitation rig that supports the unsteady participant and initially forces movement of the legs; and a training course that is as real-world as possible.
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-paralyzed-spinal-cord-20120531,0,6447865.story
http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fc7ee8c/turbine/la-heb-paralyzed-spinal-cord-20120531-001/600
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6085/1182.abstract