New Approach to Spinal Cord, Brain Injury Research

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a team of researchers has reported an innate repair mechanism in central nervous system axons that might be harnessed to regenerate nerves after brain or spinal cord injuries. The research team’s study bridges a chasm in the “recovery gap” between the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system. In a challenge to dogma, the researchers and colleagues had shown recently that messenger RNA located in peripheral nerve axons is an important part of the process by which the peripheral nerves are able to regenerate after injury. They were able to do so by building on an experiment showing that grafting a peripheral nerve into the space between a severed spinal cord in an animal model brought about nerve regeneration (albeit limited). The research is an important step forward in developing new approaches to treating spinal cord and brain injuries: “Some groups have shown that these nerve grafts help in the function of the animal,” one of the researchers says. “This is the first time that we’ve actually looked at this molecular level, and if we can understand how to increase the regenerative capacity, then maybe we can fine-tune a way to do it without having to put someone’s peripheral nerve in as a graft. So if we can understand how that leads to regeneration, then maybe we can find an easier way to do it.” To learn more about this study, click here.