In all places, Iran has just (maybe was a while ago) conducted a study on mice which took 230+ days for these mice to go from completely paralyzed, to having normal leg function.
They have apparently been injecting the mice with Schwann(sp?) cells-- cells which "hang out" in the spinal cord / vertebre and help to connect dendrites with other nerve endings in the synapse...
None-the-less they have been injecting these for months in paralyzed patients over there and its amazing: the patients are now able to wiggle their toes!! This is SO promising!
Wish i could provide a link but I saw this on the news.. if anyone else heard of this please elaborate!
That is awesome,at least something good is comimg out of Iran.I found this little article from the School of Medicine in Tehran,Iran.(quoted from the Science Direct website) for your perusal:
"Transplantation of Schwann cells to subarachnoid space induces repair in contused rat spinal cord
Masoumeh Firouzia, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, Pouria Moshayedia, b, Hooshang Saberib, Hamid Mobasheria, Farid Abolhassanib, Issa Jahanzadb and Mohsin Razac
aInstitute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
bSchool of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
cDepartment of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat-Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Received 24 January 2006; revised 12 March 2006; accepted 29 March 2006. Available online 27 April 2006.
Abstract
Schwann cell transplantation is well known to induce repair in the injured spinal cord which disables millions of injured patients throughout the world. An ideal route of delivering the grafted Schwann cells to the spinal cord should neither cause more injury nor reinitiate inflammatory events and also provide a favorable milieu to the grafted cells. In this study, we have utilized subarachnoid route to transplant Schwann cells and evaluated their effects in a contusive model of spinal cord injury. Adult rats weighing 100–140 g were experimentally injured by crushing the spinal cord with a titanium clip and then divided into four groups (Tracing, Control, Medium-treated and Schwann cell-treated). Cultured Schwann cells (5 × 104 cells in 5 μl) or medium were injected to the animals of corresponding groups via subarachnoid space at the injured site 7 days after injury. In tracing group, Schwann cells (labeled with Hoechst) demonstrated their presence within spinal cord 7 days after transplantation. Evaluation of locomotor performance of animals for 60 days after injury showed that animals treated with Schwann cells had significant improvement (P < 0.01). Similarly, the axon density at the site of injury was significantly higher. The results indicate the efficacy of subarachnoid route for the transplantation of Schwann cells in inducing repair of the contused spinal cord. We conclude that this route can be useful for the transplantation of Schwann cells and offers a hope for the patients suffering from spinal cord injury."
