A Drug Might Heal Spinal Injuries By Sparking Nerve Growth

By increasing the amount of serotonin in the spinal cord, an experimental drug helps nerve connections work better. Bee Smith/Ocean/Corbis hide caption

By increasing the amount of serotonin in the spinal cord, an experimental drug helps nerve connections work better.

A scientist who chose to ignore the mainstream nearly 30 years ago has found a new way to regenerate nerves in the spinal cord, at least in animals. A drug that Jerry Silver, a professor of neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University, helped design a drug that has allowed paralyzed rats to regain bladder function and even walk.

The drug works by releasing nerve fibers that have become trapped in scar tissue after a spinal cord injury, Silver says. "Now we've got something that might work in people," though it hasn't been tested in humans yet, he says.

The study was published Wednesday in Nature.

Everybody else in the world was asking why nerves grow where they do. And I thought I'd do something different and ask why they don't grow where they don't.

- Jerry Silver

The research that led to this drug began in the 1980s. At the time, Silver and many other scientists were studying nerves. "Everybody else in the world was asking why nerves grow where they do," he says. "And I thought I'd do something different and ask why they don't grow where they don't."

Silver figured the body must produce a substance that acts like a sort of guardrail preventing nerves from going where they are not supposed to. And after about five years of searching, he found a substance in cartilage called a proteoglycan that could redirect a growing nerve. Silver's team published their finding in the early 1990s. "Nobody believed it," he says.

It took another 10 years to convince the scientific world that the finding was real. And even then, the discovery didn't get much attention until Silver realized that the proteoglycan he had discovered played a big role in spinal injuries and paralysis.

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A Drug Might Heal Spinal Injuries By Sparking Nerve Growth