New plastic heals damaged nerves
...or polymer, that uses electric stimulation to help regrow peripheral nerves. The findings were presented today at the 219th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, by Christine Schmidt, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering a...Post-transplant nerve regrowth better with young hearts, quick surgery
... dissection of the nerves requires nerve fibers to regrow along arteries to reach the new heart," Bengel says. "Extensive scar tissue along this path may impede the regrowth. Hence, extensive reinnervation is more likely if there were few complications during transplant surgery. "This study suggests that...Gene found that helps nerve cells survive by preventing cell suicide
Why do some nerve cells survive and regrow after injury while others shrink away and die? A new discovery by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) shows that the expression of a particular gene may be responsible for protecting neurons from death. The results, published in the...Regeneration of insulin-producing islets may lead to diabetes cure
...ls. "We have found that it is possible to rapidly regrow islets from adult precursor cells, something that many thought could not be done," says Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Immunobiology Laboratory and principal investigator of the study. "By accomplishing effective, robust and durable i...Promise of stem cells amplified
...ting in paralysis. Even if the neurons are able to regrow new axons, they require oligodendrocytes to form new myelin. "By transplanting new oligodendrocytes, we repaired the lost insulation," Keirstead says. The researchers manipulated human embryonic stem cells to become oligodendrocyte progenitor cells ...Several new techniques show promise for spinal cord repair
...hat nerve cells of the spinal cord are not able to regrow once damaged." New research shows that a special ...ege and her team were able to use this approach to regrow spinal cord nerve cells using a drug called Rolipram. First, researchers conducted in vitro studies...New protein 'stop sign' alters blood vessel growth
...oit the signals vessels emit during growth to help regrow damaged nerves. During an animal's prenatal development, protein "signs" tell growing blood vessels which way to go and when to stop or turn back. Scientists already knew that one big family of "stop" proteins works by binding to two proteins, calle...Replicating an eel's nerve circuitry may aid paralyzed people
...nal cord injuries, other researchers are trying to regrow severed nerves or directly stimulate the muscles in paralyzed limbs. Etienne-Cummings and Cohen are pursuing a different but possibly complementary approach. They believe that even when the central pattern generators that guide movement from the lowe...