Word: corded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...researchers' focus is on restoring connections that are intact after an injury but for some reason no longer work. This is where the problem of remyelination comes in. Studies of multiple sclerosis patients have proved useful; MS is an autoimmune disorder in which immune cells strip the spinal-cord nerves of their myelin. Decades ago, MS researchers began testing a derivative of coal tar, 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), to help MS patients gain as much use of their existing nerves as possible. The benefit of 4-AP in paralysis studies came when research with animals showed that a lack...
...University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, who has been involved in the trials, says, "We have seen improvements in sensation and motor function, reduced spasticity and reduced pain, and improvement in bowel, bladder and sexual functions." MS researchers may come up with yet another useful therapy for spinal-cord injuries. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Moses Rodriguez is testing the use of antibodies as catalysts for the making of myelin in MS patients. Antibodies with a low affinity for myelin-producing cells in the central nervous system may stimulate these cells to divide and develop. Thus...
...damaged. A researcher at McGill University in Montreal, Alberto Aguayo, turned this assumption around by demonstrating that a nerve taken from an animal's leg and grafted onto the central nervous system allowed the nerve cells to grow along the transplanted nerve. Evidently there was nothing wrong with spinal-cord nerves, but something in the central nervous system was impeding their growth...
...Louis, who studied neural development in chick embryos. The ngf protein is present in the peripheral nervous system, but cells in the central system do not normally respond to it. Researchers are investigating ways to use ngf and proteins like it to encourage new axonal growth from the spinal cord. ngf injected into the spinal cords of rats revived connections from the spinal cord to the brain, but it remains uncertain whether more or less ngf is better for nerve growth...
Arthur Ullian feels that Reeve has been indispensable to the cause of spinal-cord injuries. "You'd never have got the national focus without him," he says. "You'd never have got the excitement at NIH. Unfortunately, diseases need icons. Chris has been that." Kirshblum of Kessler adds that Reeve has been invaluable as an inspiration to other patients. "When they hear me encourage them, they can think, 'Talk is cheap.' But they can see Chris." Young of N.Y.U. says Reeve is mainly responsible for getting Congress to pay attention to the issue. While noting that promises from politicians...