SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Experts Put Their Heads Together

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

Any chance of recovery from a spinal-cord injury, however small, depends on swift treatment. Without that, damaged nerve cells wither, some die and the body becomes paralyzed.

But perhaps the paralysis isn't permanent. Neuroscientists at the University of California San Diego have for the first time successfully regrown axons--fibers that connect nerve cells and conduct their essential communications--in the damaged spinal cords of rats with untreated injuries that are six weeks to more than a year old.

"This work may eventually make it possible to help people with longtime, established spinal-cord injuries," said Dr. Mark Tuszynski, a UCSD professor of neurosciences and co-author of a new paper describing the research in the journal Neuron.