Coaxing Injured Nerves to Regrow

piggy submitted, created time 2 months 12 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

The adult central nervous system has only a limited ability to repair itself. That's why spinal cord injuries leave people permanently paralyzed. Now a study with mice finds that removing a particular signaling molecule in adult neurons restores their ability to regenerate damaged axons, the long extensions that convey signals from one neuron to another. The find potentially paves the way for repairing spinal cords and other nervous system injuries. "It's one of the most dramatic results in the history of this field," says Ben Barres, a neurobiologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

Keywords: regenerative medicine axons neurons paraplegia paralysis injuries nerves nervous system