Coaxing Injured Nerves to Regrow

piggy submitted, created time 2 months 22 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

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Sequence Alterations within CYP7B1 Implicate Defective Cholesterol Homeostasis in Motor-Neuron Degeneration

Charles submitted, created time 11 months 2 weeks (www.ajhg.org)

The hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs [MIM 182601]) encompass a clinically heterogeneous group of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by a progressive degeneration of upper motor neurons.1 The cardinal clinical feature of lower extremity weakness and spasticity may occur in isolation (“pure” HSP) or be accompanied by other symptoms including mental retardation, cerebellar ataxia, optic and peripheral neuropathy, and thin corpus callosum

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