Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 13, 1994 TAG: 9401130062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Short
Rats with severed nerves were treated with one substance to encourage sprouting, plus another to lengthen the fibers. Preliminary tests indicate the rats recovered some abilities, researchers said.
The work is one of two studies on spinal cord injury in today's issue of the journal Nature. In the other, Japanese scientists report that newborn rats with severed spinal cords showed virtually normal function after they were given nerve tissue transplants.
Rats with successful transplants could walk, run and climb with almost normal coordination, the study said.
But in interviews, experts said the Japanese study's relevance to human injury was limited, because newborn rats are unusually receptive to such treatment.
The findings on making nerve fibers sprout in young adult rats is reported by scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry at Munich, Germany.
The work focused on nerves of the corticospinal tract, which reaches from the brain into the spinal cord and, in humans, helps control fine finger movements.
The result of the treatment is "an important observation," said Dr. Richard Bunge, scientific director of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, affiliated with the University of Miami School of Medicine. Various substances probably will be needed to encourage sprouting in nerves that affect other body parts, he said.
by CNB