SCI Cure: Creepy Fish May Offer Clues…
Just looking at these things makes my skin crawl. I don’t know how the Europeans can eat them.
I’m talking about the lamprey, a jawless fish that uses its suction-cup mouth to attach itself to other fish. Once attached, the lamprey’s impressive collection of scary looking teeth go to work and bore into its host, sucking out its flesh and drinking its blood. Despite the terrifying nature of this creature (which will surely give me nightmares tonight), it may play an important role in finding a cure for spinal cord injury.
Apparently, lampreys’ spinal cords are capable of spontaneously regenerating after injury. Researchers in Columbia, MO are currently studying this miraculous ability and looking for ways to apply it to humans. The belief is that the primitive fish have fewer channels through which calcium can enter the damaged areas of the spinal cord, thus preventing the build-up of thick scar tissue. Read more here.
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July 13th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later ..
November 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
This is really great hopeful news on potential nervous system regeneration! As a 62yo long term disabled AIDS patient survivor I would volunteer myself as a disabled patient who has suffered a devastating internal hidden brain-spine injury 17 years ago from a sudden excruciating high blood pressure reaction-event possibly causing a sudden excruciating selective “glutamate cascade” in my brain and down my spinal column causing permanent daily head and spine tremor, head and spine vibration, dyspnea, spine and hips weakness and heaviness everyday which resulted from this sudden excruciating high blood pressure reaction-event. I hold great personal hope that stemcell research may hold great promise for helping or ameliorating devastating neurological conditions such as mine and others! Where could I inquire and enroll as a candidate patient myself for potential stemcell research???