Paralyzed mice walk again
[Hat tip: Instapundit.]
Samuel Stupp at Northwestern University in Chicago and his colleagues created a material made of protein units, called monomers, that self-assemble into long chains, called supramolecular fibrils, in water.
When they were injected into the spinal cords of mice that were paralysed in the hind legs, these fibrils formed a gel at the injury site.
The researchers injected 76 paralysed mice with either the fibrils or a sham treatment made of salt solution, a day after the initial injury. They found that the gel enabled paralysed mice to walk by four weeks after the injection, whereas mice given the placebo didn’t regain the ability to walk.
The team found that the gel helped regenerate the severed ends of neurons and reduced the amount of scar tissue at the injury site, which usually forms a barrier to regeneration. The gel also enhanced blood vessel growth, which provided more nutrients to the spinal cord cells.
The article cautions that what works in mice may be difficult to scale upwards for humans. But I’ve never read anything about the treatment of paralysis that sounds as promising as this.
Also, as a person who has had a number of nerve injuries (one at the lumbar spinal level, and a couple that are more peripheral), I wonder if this might also be a treatment for that sort of thing, since it helps nerves heal and regenerate.
It sounds remarkable. I’m afraid, Neo, that it may be useful immediately following injury, and not necessarily years later, although we can hope it might turn into a treatment after time has elapsed.
That is fantastic.
My father used to tell a long shaggy-dog story about an elbow nerve complex injury he received when he was a teenager. Every ten years or so, some doctor (he claimed) would announce that science had advanced, and that if only he’d sought treatment ten years earlier they could have restored the function in his two outer fingers. He always ended the story with the old joke, “Doc, will I be to play the piano?” “I’m afraid not; had you played long?” “No, but I always meant to take it up.”
My daughter is a Physical Therapist who specialized in spinal injury when she was hands on (her former husband is wheel chair bound with a spinal inury). Her staff are still actively involved with research in collaboration with USC. Over the decades there have been many faltering steps (not a pun). There have been some advances, and some promising dead ends.
It would be remarkable if there were a real breakthrough.
I saw this the other day and it’s great news! I follow advances in spinal treatments because my wife works with so many people that have suffered injury to their spinal columns. This is, as far as I can tell, the biggest advancement so far. Let’s hope it scales up to humans. I forwarded this story to my wife–she’s less hopeful.
And don’t let a chiropractor f**k with your neck!
But what, you might ask, is the previous best thing for spinal injury? Management of spasticity through implants that deliver metered doses of baclofen. Huge game changer.
Yawrate, my daughter grits her teeth and growls whenever chiropractor is mentioned. I can always pull her chain. Interestingly her sister, an RN, claims that they have helped her over the years. I assume they do not discuss that.
Daughter tells me the Medical Director at her Rehab hospital decided to take patients off all pain killers, cold turkey, when the opioid abuse hit the news. Apparently he did not think that spinal injured experienced pain. She described him as an idiot.
Yawrate,
Many years ago, my car was rear ended while I was stopped at a light on a rainy day. I thought I was fine. 3 months later I woke up one morning with an unbelievable amount of excruciating pain in my neck. My doctor proscribed some pain medicine which did little to alleviate my pain.
Days later out of desperation I remembered my Dad’s positive experience with a chiropractor. Also, my mom had worked as a chiropractor’s assistant years before and had spoken positively of what she’d witnessed with his patients.
So I have it a try. In my 30s, I walked into his office like a very old man in great pain. Afraid to move my head even in the slightest.
After examining my neck, he told me that he could help me and that it would take three visits with each one a few weeks longer between each visit. I walked out of his office entirely pain free with full movement in my neck. It seemed a miracle.
About 2 weeks later, I started to feel slight painful twinges back in my neck. Again, same result after treatment.
A month later I visited him again for the 3rd time with the pain starting to return. Not only did I walk out of his office once again pain free but in the last 40 years I’ve never had that pain return.
This was not a case of a placebo effect. In the navy I had surgery done (pilonidal cyst) with an incision 1/2″ deep by 2″ and then forceps moved around in the wound and without any pain reliever. It was right at the edge of my high pain tolerance.
My neck pain was much worse than that surgery.
That’s not an unequivocal endorsement of Chiropractic but for some conditions it’s a godsend.
Yawrate, you weren’t in USN pre-flight class 23-55 were you?
I had a classmate who had pinoidal cyst surgery. He was excused from marching; but would hobble along with us as we marched to class, carrying the pillow that he had to sit on. Need I say he was a tough customer? I don’t know how long his recovery took, but I had to box and wrestle the brute in PT. Fortunately, he was also a friend and did not beat me up too badly.
Geoffrey, Oldflyer
Yes, chiropractors have their good points. But physical therapists (the manual therapy version) get results without the life threatening problems chiropractors can initiate. My wife had two patients that suffered burst blood vessels in the cervical spinal area leading to paralysis. Both got somewhat better after years treatment by real doctors and therapists.
The trouble with chiropractors is what the docs call “high velocity” manipulation. And maybe they don’t all do it that way…but why take a chance?
So, just don’t let them touch your neck!
I was Army in the late 1970s. Ft Bliss then Germany.
I misread Geoffrey’s response to Yawrate as coming from him.
The combination of the reference to USN, the username “Yawrate”, and a pilonidal cyst issue (there, I got it right) led me into the realm of wild speculation.
The user name “Yawrate” is intriguing. I suppose it could be related to aviation, sailing, or something entirely different.
Oldflyer,
Yawrate is motion around the vertical axis of a plane, car, etc. I was a control systems engineer in SE Michigan and worked on vehicle stability systems.