Thursday 14 July 2011

Hope for paralytics on respirators.

Bits of nerve tissue are spliced across a spinal cord injury (an old idea)  and then an enzyme is added to break down the scar tissue in the way (a new idea).  With breath-paralyzed rats, several thousand nerve cells entered the new pathway and several hundred managed to emerge on the other side. The successful ones were recruited to re-start breathing.
Big potential if this applies to people, too.   Story at Science Daily News.

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