Stem Cell Researchers Again Improving Spinal Cord Injured Rats
Related News: Spinal / Nervous / Brain, Stem Cell ResearchStem cell researchers are once again looking into the brains of mice and how some stem cell therapies can help restore walking ability in laboratory rats with spinal-cord damage. Canadian stem cell researchers are now digging into spinal stem cell therapy for treating spinal damage.
This new study has stem cell researchers looking at neural precursor cells, where is a type of stem cell that has begun differentiating into a central nervous system cells. Specifically, these cells are derived from mouse brains.
When the researchers then injected the cells into rats who had had their spines were crushed, and further gave the rats immune-suppressing drugs to prevent rejection, they found that the cells had migrated to the spinal cord. These cells further merged into the injured tissue and developed into cells that produced myelin.
Myelin is part of the insulating layer around nerve fibers that transmits signals to the brain. Typically, patients with spinal cord injuries have intact nerve fibers near or around the point of an injury but has no myelin, which then causes paralysis.
Stem cells from brains help rats walk, study says
Related News on Stem Cell Spinal Therapy: Combination Therapy Leads to Partial Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury in Rats
Posted on March 29, 2006 11:10 AM