German scientists have made paralyised mice walk again by injecting designer protein into the brain. After suffering spinal cord injuries, they had become unable to walk.
Researchers re-established neural links in mice following which they became able to walk like before. It is nearly impossible to repair this neural link in mammals.
Spinal cord injuries leave humans paralysed because of damage to nerve fibers. These nerve fibers are responsible for the communication between muscles and the brain.
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After injuries to the spinal cord, many nerve fibers are not able to grow again.
But the researchers from Ruhr University Bochum successfully stimulated the nerve cells of the paralysed mice for regeneration. For this, they used designer protein.
What do the scientists say?
“The special thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves but that it is also carried further (through the brain),” the team’s head Dietmar Fischer was reported as saying in the media report.
“In this way, with a relatively small intervention, we stimulate a very large number of nerves to regenerate and that is ultimately the reason why the mice can walk again,” he said.
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The treatment involves injecting carriers of genetic information into the brain to produce the protein, called hyper-interleukin-6, according to the university’s website.
“We also have to see if our method works on larger mammals. We would think of pigs, dogs or primates, for example,” Fischer, the head of the team of German scientists, said.
“Then, if it works there, we would have to make sure that the therapy is safe for humans too. But that will certainly take many, many years,” he added.
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