Medicinal Leech May Offer Clues To Neural Regeneration
...h a connective, a structure somewhat like a spinal cord without the spine. The connective is made up of numerous axons that allow the ganglia to send messages to each other. In her study, Sahley and Shafer used a pair of fine forceps to crush the connective, severing the axons running from ganglia to gang...Scientists Find New Trigger For Nerve Cell Death
... nerve cells self-destruct when the brain orspinal cord is injured or becomes diseased. It suggests that when potassiumjumps ship, neurons commit suicide. "If our hypothesis proves correct, it will open up new possibilities forprotecting nerve cells in patients who suffer stroke, head injury, spi...Spinal Cord Injury Treatment May Improve With New Findings On Nervous System Damage
...ichincreases long-term disability, deprives spinal cord patients of bowel andbladder control and can accou... of the damaged longcables that go down the spinal cord could provide meaningful improvement inday-to-day function for people who sustain spinal cord injury...High-Pressure Chambers Could Prevent Paralysis After Spinal Cord Injury
...any of the thousands of Americans who sufferspinal cord injuries every year, a doctor from Scotland report...ury. Typically, nerve tissue in the spinal cord is starved of oxygen becausethe small capillaries that carry blood to the tissue are damaged. If ade...High-pressure Oxygen Therapy Could Offer Widespread Benefits
...in treating victims of stroke, epilepsy and spinal cord injury. Particularly with respect to treating stroke, "There is potential fora meaningful benefit for patients," said Thom, president of the Undersea andHyperbaric Medical Society. The problem is, there's no reason why hyperbaric o...Georgia Scientists Study Salt Marsh To Understand Global Warming
...y productive. Here, great expanses of Spartina, or cord grass, form the basis of thefood chain. Salt marshes play a critical role as nursery grounds forfishes, shellfish and other marine organisms by providing a place wherethe young stages of animals can grow rapidly. The 10-acre Sapelo study site also p...Duke Researchers Call Gene Therapy A Promising Strategy For Sickle Cell Anemia
... bloodfrom sickle cell patients and from umbilical cord blood, the afterbirth ofnormal infants. From this ... In addition, promising experiments with umbilical cord blood suggestpossibly this unique source of blood stem cells as a permanent treatment forsickle cell......Death According to Shoemaker, "People with spinal cord injuries are very susceptibleto skin breakdown and...lcers is about 50 percent amongst those withspinal cord injuries. The statistics get more ominous, though. Of those withpressure ulcers, an impressive numbe......ve cell,which passes the pain signal up the spinal cord to the brain. Because thesignals cross junctions -...s and messagesfrom the RVM. Zhuo found that spinal cord neurons, much like those in thebrain's hippocampus, become more efficient at transmitting signals th...More Than $7.5 Million For Research
... bloodstream (Johns Hopkins U.); Healing spinal cord injuries with a spinal graft (U. of Toronto) andregenerating nerve cells (CWRU; U. of Texas at Austin); Making artificial joints last longer (Brigham and Women's Hospital); and Giving severe stroke patients increased use of their arms (U. of Cal...International Study Finds Mothers' Lifetime Lead Exposures May Put Breast-Fed Newborns At Risk
...link between the lead concentrationin the maternal cord blood and lead levels in the first breast milk samples, afinding that could have clinical significance. Bill Jameson, Ph.D., theInstitute toxicologist who serves as NIEHS project officer for the study, said"If this relationship can be verified throug...Simple Chemical Switch Steers Migrating Neurons
...d promise for regeneratingnerves damaged by spinal cord injury. It also provides potentiallyimportant clue...hare a common chemical switch. In studying spinal cord neurons cultured from frog embryos, theinvestigators found evidence of two steering-related circuits......ll ultimately relay information between the spinal cord and muscles). The challenge The Nature paper poses challenges to both the timing of floor plate induction and the central role of Hedgehog proteins. In earlier experiments, Marnie Halpern, an embryologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington a...Researchers Grow Healthy Human Placental Cells For Drug Research
...yo attaches itself to the uterus and the umbilical cord forms, the embryo is bathed in oxygen, and cells put less energy into fast reproduction in order to assume specialized functions. Kniss added that since he and Ma were able to maintain live trophoblast cells under low oxygen conditions ...Wistar Scientists Locate Genes Involved In Mammalian Tissue Regeneration
...r wound and burn healing, organreplacement, spinal cord regeneration and controlled tissue growth. Because mice are genetically similar to humans, they are an ideal model for thelaboratory study of mammalian regeneration. Prior to Dr. Heber-Katz's discoveryof the "healer" mouse, it was possible to stu...Cell Suicide Prevented By Survival Signals
...t for therapy ofneurodegenerative diseases, spinal cord injury or stroke. Researchershypothesize that stroke reduces brain cells' access to survival signals andgradually causes apoptosis in millions of additional cells that survive theinitial insult. "It may be that the Hid pathway operates for the social...Medical Tip Sheet - November 1, 1998
...by stroke, Parkinson'sdisease, epilepsy and spinal cord injuries. The treatment involves removal andregeneration of carefully targeted brain cells, which are then re-introducedinto the patient, where growth continues and the brain is repaired. Available for interviews: Michel Levesque, M.D., Director, Neu...Hopkins Research Team Cultures Long-Awaited Human Embryonic Stem Cells
...ld becometransplant therapies for diabetes, spinal cord injury, neurodegenerativedisorders like Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophies, atherosclerosis andwound healing," says Gearhart. Stem cells could prove valuable in studies onbirth defects, pregnancy loss and cancer biology by revealing which gen...First Derivation Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reported In Science
... in wound healing, stroke, heart attack and spinal cord injury. Collaborations with ES Cell Leaders To accomplish its hES cell program objectives, Geron has established collaborations with renowned researchers in the field. The company funds research by and holds worldwide licensing agreements with Joh...Sex-Specific Behavior Controlled By Peripheral Nervous System
...todevelop treatments for injuries involving spinal cord damage, or which result insensory damage," Weissburg said. For his experiments, Weissburg chose marsh fiddler crabs (Uca pugilator)as a sample species because they are quite common in the eastern United States, andthe males and females are st...