Category Archives: Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

Step toward cure: A treatment which has allowed paralysed rats to walk again could be developed to help human victims of spinal injury. Source: Supplied IT WAS one small step for a rat, but it may be one giant leap for mankind. Rats paralysed by spinal injuries have learned to walk, and run, again after groundbreaking treatment which awakens the spinal brain and helps the spine to repair itself. Australian experts yesterday hailed the successful research as bringing science to the edge of a truly profound advance in modern medicine by allowing paralysed people to walk again. Swiss scientists who have spent five years investigating how the brain and spine can adapt to injury, injected a chemical solution into the rats which stimulated neurons in their spines. The cocktail of drugs, aided by electrical stimulation, strengthened the signals normally sent by the brain down the spinal cord in healthy rats, and when the tests rats, which had severely damaged, but not completely severed, spinal cords, were placed in special harnesses, they could walk. After a couple of weeks of neurorehabilitation with a combination of a robotic harness and electrical-chemical stimulation, our rats are not only voluntarily initiating a walking gait, … Continue reading →

After severe spinal cord damage, paralyzed rats are able to walk again with the help of a robot to hold them up and stimulate their nerves, a new study shows. After the rats are trained on the machine for about two months, they gained the ability to control their hind legs -- which had previously been cut off from communicating with the brain -- with enough dexterity to climb stairs and navigate around objects. This control means that the brain has forged new connections to get around the spinal cord injury. NEWS: Bionic Suit Helps Paralyzed Woman Complete Marathon "We expected they would recover to some degree, but the extent was amazing. They were able to avoid obstacles and walk up stairs," study researcher Janine Heutschi, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland, told LiveScience. "Not only that, but the consistency was really amazing. Every single animal we trained in this robot was able to perform these tasks." What this means for humans is unclear, but the team is working to adapt the procedure for clinical trials. Paralyzed Rats The researchers simulated spinal cord damage in the rats by making two cuts halfway through the spinal cord; the … Continue reading →

NEW YORK Many scientists are working on treatments to help people with spinal cord injuries walk. Now there's a striking new demonstration of how one approach might work: Spinal nerve stimulation helped rats in a Swiss lab overcome paralysis to walk and climb stairs. That may sound impressive, but similar progress has been made in people, too. The difference this time is the particular technique used. "It's a natural extension of exciting work that's been done by many groups," said Dr. John McDonald, director of the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. He wasn't involved in the research. In the new experiment, reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science, researchers stimulated spinal nerve circuits and used physical training. The stimulation was electrical current from implanted electrodes plus injections of a chemical mix. To do the training, the rats were placed in a harness so that only their hind legs reached the ground. Then they were placed on a treadmill, which produced only reflexive stepping, and on stationary ground, where they had to choose to make their legs move if they wanted to reach a piece of chocolate. They took their first voluntary steps … Continue reading →

May 31, 2012 2:53pm Paralyzed rats could walk again after scientists in Switzerland treated their injured spinal cordsthrough a combination of chemical, electrical and physical stimulation. Gregoire Courtine, the studys lead author, said the techniquewould not completely cure a spinal cord injury, but the study gave scientists an idea of how they could combine therapies, each of which have been orare beingtested in humans. This kind of approach will not make miracles, said Gregoire Courtine, the studys lead author, but its interesting because it offers new therapeutic avenues for these very traumatic injuries. First, the researchers injected the injured rats with chemicals designed to mimic the bodys own cocktail of signals that coordinate movement of the lower body. Five to 10 minutes after the injection, the researchers sent electrical impulses to tiny electrodes placed in the narrow space between the bones of the spine and the nerves of the spinal cord, stokingthe spinal cords ability to come back after an injury, a quality scientists call neuroplasticity. The findings were published today in the journal Science. After a few weeks of the combination of chemicals and electricity, 10 rats were trained to use their paralyzed hind legs with the help of … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (May 31, 2012) Rats with spinal cord injuries and severe paralysis are now walking (and running) thanks to researchers at EPFL. Published in the June 1, 2012 issue of Science, the results show that a severed section of the spinal cord can make a comeback when its own innate intelligence and regenerative capacity is awakened. The study, begun five years ago at the University of Zurich, points to a profound change in our understanding of the central nervous system. According to lead author Grgoire Courtine, it is yet unclear if similar rehabilitation techniques could work for humans, but the observed nerve growth hints at new methods for treating paralysis. "After a couple of weeks of neurorehabilitation with a combination of a robotic harness and electrical-chemical stimulation, our rats are not only voluntarily initiating a walking gait, but they are soon sprinting, climbing up stairs and avoiding obstacles when stimulated," explains Courtine, who holds the International Paraplegic Foundation (IRP) Chair in Spinal Cord Repair at EPFL. Waking up the spinal cord It is well known that the brain and spinal cord can adapt and recover from moderate injury, a quality known as neuroplasticity. But until now the spinal cord expressed … Continue reading →

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. (OTC/BB: NVIV), a developer of groundbreaking technologies for the treatment of spinal cord injuries (SCI), today announced that the Company will be conducting a webcast of the Annual Shareholders Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time at One Broadway, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142. The webcast can be accessed by interested shareholders and other parties at http://mp163419.cdn.mediaplatform.com/163419/wc/mp/4000/11124/14575/15458/Lobby/default.htm. The meeting will also be accessible by telephone in listen-only mode. From the U.S., please dial 1-877-941-2068; from outside the U.S. please dial 1-480-629-9712. All participants should reference conference I.D. 4543212. Slides from the meeting will be available to those viewing the webcast,and a replay of the webcast including presentation slides will also be available under the Investor Relations section of the InVivo Therapeutics website within 24 hours. About InVivo Therapeutics InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. is utilizing polymers as a platform technology to develop treatments to improve function in individuals paralyzed from traumatic spinal cord injuries. The company was founded in 2005 based on proprietary technology co-invented by Robert S. Langer, ScD. Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Joseph P. Vacanti, M.D., who is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital. … Continue reading →

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. (OTC/BB: NVIV), a developer of groundbreaking technologies for the treatment of spinal cord injuries (SCI), today announced that CEO Frank Reynolds is scheduled to appear on KXAN-TVs Austin News Today Weekend on Saturday, May 19th at 7:20am CDT in Austin, TX. He is also scheduled to appear on Detroits WXYZ-TV 7 Action News on Sunday, May 20th at 8:40am EDT with local quadriplegic Drew Clayborn. Drew was paralyzed in 2010 and will join Frank on air to talk about his story and how InVivo Therapeutics treatment could change his life. InVivo Therapeutics has pioneered a new treatment using a biocompatible polymer-based scaffold to provide structural support to a damaged spinal cord. The device spares spinal cord tissue from scarring while improving functional recovery after a traumatic SCI. In addition to the scaffold and its application for acute and chronic SCI, Reynolds will discuss new hydrogel technologies under development by InVivo. Our technology is a true platform that can be leveraged to create many Neurotrauma products. InVivo is developing technologies to treat chronic injuries like Drews, as well as therapies for other nervous system conditions such as chronic pain due to nerve compression and … Continue reading →

Thirty Percent of Patients Show Improved Functioning after Stem Cell Therapy Philadelphia, Pa. (May 17, 2012) One of the first long-term studies of stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury shows significant functional and other improvements in three out of ten patients, reports a study in the May issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The results support the safety of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from the patient's own bone marrow, showing "continuous and gradual motor improvement" in at least some patients with disability caused by spinal cord injury. The lead author of the new study was Dr. Sang Ryong Jeon of University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. Evidence of Improved Function after MSC Treatment for Spinal Cord Injury The researchers performed MSC transplantation in ten patients with permanent motor (movement) deficits or paralysis (paraplegia or quadriplegia) after spinal cord injury. Mesenchymal stem cells are a type of "multipotent" cell that can be cultured from adult bone marrow and induced to develop into many different types of cells. The cultured MSCs were injected directly into the injured … Continue reading →

NEWARK, Calif., May 17, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StemCells, Inc. (Nasdaq:STEM - News) today announced completion of the first planned interim safety review of the Company's Phase I/II spinal cord injury clinical trial, which indicated that the surgery, immunosuppression and the cell transplants have been well-tolerated. The trial, which is designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of the Company's proprietary HuCNS-SC(R) cells (purified human neural stem cells), represents the first time that neural stem cells have been transplanted as a potential therapeutic agent for spinal cord injury. A summary of the data will be presented by Armin Curt, M.D., principal investigator for the clinical trial, at the Interdependence 2012 Global SCI Conference, which is being held in Vancouver, British Columbia, from May 15 to 17, 2012. The interim data is from the first cohort of patients, all of whom suffered a complete spinal cord injury in which there is no neurological function below the level of the injury. All patients enrolled were transplanted with a dose of 20 million cells at the site of injury in the thoracic spinal cord. There were no abnormal clinical, electrophysiological or radiological responses to the cells, and all the patients were neurologically … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (May 15, 2012) Surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have restored some hand function in a quadriplegic patient with a spinal cord injury at the C7 vertebra, the lowest bone in the neck. Instead of operating on the spine itself, the surgeons rerouted working nerves in the upper arms. These nerves still "talk" to the brain because they attach to the spine above the injury. Following the surgery, performed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and one year of intensive physical therapy, the patient regained some hand function, specifically the ability to bend the thumb and index finger. He can now feed himself bite-size pieces of food and write with assistance. The case study, published online May 15 in the Journal of Neurosurgery, is, to the authors' knowledge, the first reported case of restoring the ability to flex the thumb and index finger after a spinal cord injury. "This procedure is unusual for treating quadriplegia because we do not attempt to go back into the spinal cord where the injury is," says surgeon Ida K. Fox, MD, assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Washington University, who treats patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "Instead, we go out to … Continue reading →