Repair of damaged nerves

1994/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

Some nerves present in the human body, even damaged, are easily restored. For example, if you hit the skin in your hand, the damage is never serious. The skin heals quickly and the cut nerves are renewed in a few weeks.

Instead, in the brain or spinal cord it is something else. If your nerves are damaged it is not possible to repair them. Neurobiologists have been trying to find out why peripheral nerves and spinal brains and metrics have such a different behavior. They know that nerves begin to regenerate in the brain and spine, but that recovery is inhibited.

At the University of Zurich a few years ago researcher Martin Schwab and his team isolated two proteins that inhibited the renewal of nerve fibers in the myelin surrounding the spinal cord. By creating the corresponding specific antibodies, they were applied to rats damaged by the nerve and stretched nerve cells ten times more than normal.

The latest discoveries have completed this data. The Martin Schwaben group intentionally injects a substance called NT-3 (Neurotrophin 3) into a damaged spinal cord medullary rat and by applying an antibody called IN-1 (which neutralizes myelin inhibitory proteins), nerve fibers have elongated by two centimeters. Amazing!

Meanwhile, at the Kyoto Medical School, the team of researcher Yasushi Iwashita has achieved another surprising thing regarding brain nerves. The newborn rat who lacked a piece of brain has been inserted a part of the same size taken from a fetus. The brain has healed and the rat is able to walk, jump and climb.