Sapporo Medical University, Japan, will launch the nation’s first clinical trial for using stem cells to regenerate nerves in people with spinal cord injuries. The team will collect bone marrow fluid from patients who have sustained spinal cord injuries within…
Category: Research (page 34)
Stem cell therapies show promise for spinal cord injury patients
Currently, most studies of stem cell therapies are conducted on small groups of mice, rats and other animals. As a result, scientists’ ability to extrapolate their findings to human patients is somewhat limited. The recent PLOS Biology study sought to…
Drug may reduce chronic pain for spinal cord injuries
Researchers have discovered that a known neurotoxin may cause chronic pain in people who suffer from paralysis, and a drug that has been shown to remove the toxin might be used to treat the pain. The toxin, called acrolein, is…
Quadriplegics at risk for serious sleep breathing disorder
Researchers have long known that SCI patients are significantly more likely than people without SCI to have conditions that cause disordered breathing during sleep. These include central sleep apnea, a serious condition in which patients’ breathing stops periodically during sleep…
Stem cell scarring aids recovery from spinal cord injury
In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden show that the scar tissue formed by stem cells after a spinal cord injury does not impair recovery; in fact, stem cell scarring confines the damage. These surprising findings, which…
Co-transplanted cells and treadmill training aids rats with spinal cord injury
After Schwann cells (SCs), the principal cells in the peripheral nervous system, and olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), cells that ensheath the non-myelinated peripheral neurons in the nose, were co-transplanted into laboratory rats with spinal cord injury, researchers in Beijing, China…
Fish can regenerate nerves after SCI – research shows how
Fish, unlike humans, can regenerate nerve connections and recover normal mobility following an injury to their spinal cord. Now, University of Missouri researchers have discovered how the sea lamprey, an eel-like fish, regrows the neurons that comprise the long nerve…
Invivo on track to start bio scaffold clinical trial in Jan 2014
US based Invivo Therapeutics expects that the clinical trial of its first investigational product, a degradable polymer scaffold designed to promote healing following acute spinal cord injury, will be ready to enroll patients in the first quarter of 2014. –…
Melbourne research team aim to develop a bionic spinal cord
MELBOURNE scientists are developing a “bionic spinal cord” to allow paralysed spinal cord and stroke patients to control robotic limbs by thought. The ambitious $2.5m project, which is being financially backed by the US military and Australian Government, aims to…
Scientists identify clue to regrowing nerve cells
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a chain reaction that triggers the regrowth of some damaged nerve cell branches, a discovery that one day may help improve treatments for nerve injuries that can cause…