It is perhaps one of the more tragically enduring challenges that faces the medical sciences: that injury to the spinal cord typically results in the losses of feeling and function that are permanent and irreversible.
Not so fast, according to a research team who boasts of a recent breakthrough that is nothing short of remarkable. Additional research and refinement may lead to real hope for patients for whom hope has been in very short supply.
As Science Daily reports, researchers from Harvard University and the University of California Irvine and San Diego have successfully demonstrated regrowth of connective spinal cord tissue that governs voluntary movement. The successful treatment of the injured spinal nerve tissue in laboratory mice is described as highly significant and a first, and opens up new avenues for the development of potential treatments in people, raising the possibility that paralysis and other impairments may one day be reversed.
The research team’s big find came about by thinking small: at the molecular level. By tinkering with the timing of biochemical functions of the spinal cells, and in particular, by switching off one specific enzyme called PTEN, nerve cell regrowth was able to proceed where it previously could not. The team’s methods and findings are currently published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Team member and contributing author Oswald Steward of University of California Irvine explains the significance of the discovery to Science Daily:
“Until now, such robust nerve regeneration has been impossible in the spinal cord. Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable, but our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people.”
Photo by don.wing45 via Flickr.