A small transplant helped again walk again – is the next human healing?

Spinal cord injuries break the signal between the brain and the body, and often lead to a functional loss. “Unlike the pieces on the skin, which usually heals on its own, the spinal cord does not effectively renew, which makes these injuries destroyed and currently found,” says Dr. Bruce Harland, a great research colleague at the Pharmacy School.

Before birth, to a lower limit after that, the electric fields that naturally have a vital role in the development of the early nervous system, encourage and direct the growth of nerve tissue along the spinal cord. Scientists are now harnessing this electrical guidance system in the laboratory. An electronic implantable electronic device after the spinal cord was injured in an animal study, which raises hopes for effective treatment for humans and even their pets.

“We have developed a very thin transplant designed to sit directly on the spinal cord, which was accurately placed on the mice injury site,” says Dr. Harland.

The device offers a carefully controlled electric current through the injury site. “The goal is to motivate healing so that people can restore lost jobs through the injury of the spine,” says Professor Darren Sfirkskis, director of the Catwalk Cure program at the University College.

Unlike humans, mice have a greater ability to recover automatic after the spinal cord injury, allowing researchers to compare natural recovery with a recovery supported by electrical stimulation.

After four weeks, animals that received the treatment of the daily electric field showed an improvement in a comparison movement with those who did not do it.

During the 12 -week study, they responded more quickly.

“This indicates that the treatment is to support recovery for both movement and sensation,” says Harland. “Equally important, our analysis emphasized that the treatment did not cause inflammation or other damage to the spinal cord, which indicates that it was not only effective, but was also safe.”

This new study, published in Nature CommunicationsIt came out of a partnership between the University of Auckland and the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

“In the long run, the goal of converting this technology into a medical device can benefit people with vigor for -spinning spiny fork injuries,” says Professor Maria Asplond of the Chalmers University of Technology.

“This study provides an exciting evidence of the concept that shows that the electric field therapy can support recovery after the spinal cord injury,” says a doctoral student in Lucas, from the University of Chalmers.

The next step is to explore how to affect different doses, including strength, repetition, duration of treatment, recovery, to discover the most effective recipe for fixing the fork fork.