-
By Gigi Bloomfield
Could A Rat Teach You to Walk Again?

Spinal cord paralysis can have profound effects on someone's life, however this previously irreversible injury may become healable in the near future. This could all become possible with the use of an implant that gets surgically inserted at the injury on the spinal cord. The implant was designed by scientist Grégoire Courtine, professor of neuroprosthetics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

While this new piece of technology has not had substantial testing on humans, it has been tested on rats for over 15 years. The rats that were tested were paralyzed at the beginning and after proper training and stimulation, they were able to walk again. A tiny implant was put just below the spinal cord injury. When the implant is being used it stimulates the nerves that were damaged by the injury. After just two months of repeated training and stimulation, the rats were able to walk again. This was made possible because the stimulation of the nerve caused the nerve fibers to regrow and reconnect to the rest of the nervous system, therefore allowing the brain to properly send messages to the legs and spine. With this connection regained the rats were able to walk normally again. Used to assist the training was a harness to help the rat stabilize. A similar large scale version of this harness is being used in the first tests on humans. According to Gregoire Courtine the harness,” holds them like a parent would hold a young child to take his first steps”.

The implant is installed through a surgery. It is put on the surface of the lumbar spinal cord located in the lower back. Grégoire Courtine is not the only one trying to fight this battle. Scientist Stéphanie Lacour is designing an implant that goes on the spinal cord that is made out of a flexible material inspired after the fiber that covers the brain and spinal cord. This implant is not quite ready for clinical testing, but sometime soon it could create a huge impact on those facing paralysis every day.

With the leading cause of spinal paralysis being automotive crashes, this injury affects a vast number of people. In the future, after the finalization of this technology, it could change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people internationally. The next steps of making this a reliable and safe treatment would be more testing on people in clinical trials. If all goes well, in the future spinal paralysis will be reversible.













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mahar-ullah Shahminah- Molecular Gastronomy

-
Image
Molecular Gastronomy   By: Shahminah Mahar-ullah Date:3/22/19 Molecular Gastronomy is both a fusion of science and cooking. The scientific discipline gives the chef complete control of what the texture, taste, and physical appearance of the dish. Molecular Gastronomy is a modern unique style of cooking that some would say it could be considered art. There are three aspects of Molecular Gastronomy, as i said before it is texture,taste,and physical appearance. Molecular Gastronomy can have a very simple and familiar taste or a new and unique taste. Taste is often a aspect that is forgotten about in Molecular Gastronomy. Mostly because people who don't know much about the style of cooking kinda forget that its actually cooking ,not just some form a science. Taste is the main focus with cooking in general and with molecular cooking taste can be brought to a whole new level since you have complete control over each part of the dish. Same goes for physical appearance and ...
Read more

Chemically termolecular reactions: The fourth class of chemical reactions

-
Image
Chemically termolecular reactions: The fourth class of chemical reactions Maisy Chase Up until now only three classes of chemical reactions were known. Unimolecular reactions occur when one reactant undergoes bond breaking or forming to create different products. Bimolecular reactions are where two reactants collide and then undergo bond breaking or forming. Termolecular association reactions, where two reactants collide to form a whole with a new chemical bond between the two reactants. A third molecule, known as the bath gas, then removes some of the internal kinetic energy of that molecule to stabilize it. Researchers from Columbia University , led by Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Michael P. Burke, have discovered a fourth class of chemical reaction known as “chemically termolecular reactions.” This involves the breaking and bonding of three molecules. The team showed that these chemically termolecular reactions not only are major chemical pathways but also ...
Read more

Force and Motion

-
Image
Zach Fluck Science blog Force and Motion Blog Sir Isaac Newton was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, born on December 25, 1642. He died on March 20, 1727, most likely from mercury poisoning or old age. However, during his life, he made several contributions to modern science and advanced our understanding of physics tremendously. Arguably his most famous discovery was gravity. However, he had to use his 3 laws of motion to make this accomplishment. Newton understood that an object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted on by unbalanced forces. Therefore, if an object such as an apple is in a resting position there must be a force to make the apple fall to the ground. He discovered this invisible force to be gravity. At a young age Newton was removed from school to be a farmhand. Despite returning to school the turning point in his live was he left his hometown to attend Cambridge University. After attending Cambridge he returned to his hometown where his observat...
Read more