Sunlive: The study offers hope for spinal cord injuries

Spinal cord injuries are currently incurable with devastating effects on people’s lives, but now a trial in Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland offers hope for effective treatment.

Spinal cord lesions break the signal between the brain and the body, which often results in a loss of function.

“Unlike a skin cut, which is usually cured by itself, the spinal cord is not effectively regenerated, which makes these injuries devastating and currently incurable,” said the principal researcher, Dr. Bruce Harland, senior researcher at the Waipapa Taumata Rau School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland.

Before birth, and to a lesser extent later, the electric fields that happen naturally play a vital role in the early development of the nervous system, encouraging and guiding the growth of nerve tissue along the spinal cord.

Scientists are now taking advantage of this same electrical guidance system in the laboratory.

An implantable electronic device has restored the movement after the spinal cord injury in an animal study, which increases the hopes of effective treatment for humans and even for their pets.

“We develop an Ultra Delgado implant designed to sit directly on the spinal cord, placed precisely on the rats injury site,” said Dr. Harland.

The device offers a carefully controlled electric current throughout the injury site.

“The objective is to stimulate healing so that people can recover lost functions through an injury to the Spinal-Cord,” said Professor Darren Svirskis, director of the Catwalk Cure Program at the University of Pharmacy School of the University.

“Unlike humans, rats have a greater capacity for spontaneous recovery after the spinal cord injury, which allowed researchers to compare natural healing with healing supported by electrical stimulation.”

After four weeks, animals that received daily electric field treatment showed an improved movement compared to those who did not.

Throughout the 12 -week study, they responded more quickly to the soft touch.

“This indicates that the treatment supported the recovery of both movement and sensation,” Harland said.

“Equally important, our analysis confirmed that the treatment did not cause inflammation or other damage to the spinal cord, which shows that it was not only effective but also safe.”

The vision is that once the cable is cured, the device would be deleted, in the photo. Photo / supplied.

This new study, published in a leading magazine, has emerged from an association between the University of Auckland and the Technological University of Chalmers in Sweden. See Nature Communications

“In the long term, the objective is to transform this technology into a medical device that could benefit people who live with these injuries that change the lives of clouds,” said Professor Maria Asplund from the Technological University of Chalmers.

“This study offers an exciting proof of concept that shows that the electric field treatment can support recovery after the spinal cord injury,” said doctoral student Lukas Matter, also from the University of Chalmers.

The next step is to explore how the different doses, including strength, frequency and duration of treatment, affect recovery, to discover the most effective recipe for repairing spinal facts.

Discover animal -based research at the University of Auckland.