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From: Tzipporah.Benavraham@f607.n278.z1.fidonet.org (Tzipporah Benavraham)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: nerve regeneration research
Message-ID: <16211@handicap.news>
Date: 18 Jun 91 16:32:56 GMT
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Index Number: 16211

[This is from the Spinal Injury Conference]

06/05 10:37 EDT V0563
   MIAMI -- Researchers seeking a cure for paralysis
said Wednesday that they were able to regenerate injured
nerve fibers from the eye, a step toward the long-sought
goal of repairing spinal cord damage.
   Scientists at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis said
they regenerated injured fibers from the eye's retinal
ganglion cells in a special culture.
   Dr. Richard Bunge, scientific director of the Miami
paralysis research group, worked on the study with Dr.
James Hopkins of the National Eye Institute.
   Their findings were published Wednesday in the June
issue of the journal Experimental Neurology.
   European researchers presented similar findings earlier
this year in a competing research project. Previous studies
have had success with laboratory animals, but failed to
duplicate the results with human nerve tissue.
   Until these studies, people with spinal cord injuries
were given no hope for recovery. But experts say the new
findings could lead to applications to repair spinal cord
injuries and neuro-degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's
disease.
   "It's an advancement because humans are resistant to
regeneration," said Dr. Ronald Meyer, associate professor
of developmental biology at the University of California
at Irvine. He has been successful in regenerating retinal
nerve fibers in mice.
   "Most people in the field feel that there is some
residual capability in these cells to regrow, and what
we're trying to understand is how to elicit that regenerative
response," he said.
   The researchers aren't talking about growing new cells.
But they say severed nerve fibers -- the connection between
nerve cells and their target brain cells -- can regrow back
to the target cell.
   The eye tissue was chosen for study because it comes from
the brain during fetal development and shares similar
characteristics. But previous regeneration research has shown
retinal cells may be easier to work with than other brain
cells and those controlling spinal cord movement.
   In the Miami study, the retinal cells cultured in an
artificial medium regenerated their injured nerve fibers
inside the tissue or onto the culture dish surface, but only
when Schwann cells covered the tissue.
   Schwann cells from the peripheral nervous system, which
carries messages between the central nervous system and the
rest of the body, were known to play a necessary role in
regeneration of peripheral nerve fibers.
   Research in experimental animals since 1980 has
established the ability to regenerate nerve cells from the
central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) in mammals,
such as mice and rats, in the proper growth environment.
   Nerve cells in the peripheral nervous system, which
carries messages between the central nervous system and
the body, retained the ability to regenerate, but the same
could not be said for nerves in the central nervous system.
   That failure was thought to be due to deficiencies
surrounding the nerve cells rather than an intrinsic
inability to repair themselves.

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