And as reported in a pair of studies published this week in Nature and Nature Communications, a molecule that has long been known to clear out dying or damaged nerve cells also—amazingly—tries to heal them.
In this study, scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, discovered that not only does PSR-1 clear out dead cells, it tries to save the ones that haven’t quite kicked the bucket. Specifically, the team observed PSR-1 literally reconnecting nerve fibers, known as axons, which had broken due to injury.