We are always looking for new developments that can lead to spinal cord injury (SCI) recovery and press releases like this one are a great incentive to keep looking.

The PLoS Medicine site reports that researchers studying spinal cord injuries in mice found that chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan (CSPG) is needed for the repair of the neurons that will facilitate the regaining of movement, but after time, it actually hinders a full nervous system recovery. In studies on mice, the researchers allowed CSPG to act uninhibited for two days after the injury before interfering and by doing this, created a promising response in the animals.

Heavily secreted after an injury, CSPG helps to form glial scars after a SCI. These scars protect the damaged areas, but they also release chemicals that work to prevent further regeneration in the nervous system. Because of its link to preventing axonal development, researchers were focused on eliminating CSPG from the injured area.

This compounded data suggests that eliminating CSPG may not be the best answer, and scientists are opting instead to control it. CSPG has a place in the healing process as it regulates the local immune response which is vital for proper healing.

So far studies only extend to animals, not humans, but there are similar enough correlations between spinal cord repair processes that it’s believed this research can soon be applied to human subjects.

To read the original release, please click here.

Indevus Pharmaceuticals has received a United States patent for it’s overactive bladder treatment, the drug Sanctura XR. Good until January 2025, this once-a-day treatment is, according to Indevus’s Website, the only approved quaternary amine compound for the treatment of overactive bladder.

This compound can relax the smooth muscle tissue in the bladder, decreasing the contractions that lead to over activity. As many spinal cord injury (SCI) patients know first hand, they are particularly prone to developing an overactive bladder due to the nerve pathways between the bladder and brain becoming interrupted.

With the use of dugs such as Sanctura XR, patients are hopefully able to avoid painful surgeries and extended recovery periods. Of course, as with all drugs, the degree of benefit depends on its interaction with each individual patient. We aren’t advocating for this particular drug, only sharing your latest options!

If you’d like more information, click here.

A MedPage Today article references a study performed by Paul Little, M.D. at the University of Southampton that was reported in BMJ Online First that may be able to benefit those with chronic back pain, such as is often felt after a spinal cord injury (SCI).

The focus was on the Alexander technique, a one-on-one instruction method created to help individuals develop lifelong skills that will improve chronic back pain by looking at things that contribute to the pain, such as poor posture, and rectifying it.

With as little as six lessons in the Alexander technique of musculoskeletal use combined with exercise, patients were found to have significantly reduced chronic back pain long-term.

The measure of benefit used is the Roland disability score which measures how many activities a patient can do. The Alexander technique was found to improve the patients scores by three points, meaning an addition of three activities that were no longer limited by back pain

To learn more and see for yourself if this technique can help you, check out this Website.

Stem cell research is moving along at a fantastic pace these days, with non-controversial sources being discovered at a seemingly increasing rate.

An important development came to our attention on BrightSurf.com’s news site. Dr. Noboru Sato, an assistant professor of biochemistry at UC Riverside, has created a way to grow human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), cells that can produce any type of adult cells in humans, without the use of animal-derived material.

Currently, the majority of researchers use animal-based materials for cell cultures, risking the transmission of viruses and pathogens to the growing hESCs. Sato has figured out how to use poly-D-lysine, a chemically synthesized extracellular matrix that the hESCs attach to, instead of the animal-derived Matrigel-coated culture plates typically in use now.

Not only is the poly-D-lysine cleaner, it is easier to work with and has a high rate of pluripotency, a term meaning that it helps hESCs with the ability to divide into specialized cells.

This study will appear online in the Aug. 20 issue of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE.

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There are two new groundbreaking developments in paralysis and spinal cord research. These are peripheral nerve re-routing, and suppression of scar formation and spinal cord regeneration.

Peripheral Nerve Re-Routing

Peripheral nerve re-routing entails taking the peripheral nerves above the point of injury, and surgically rerouting them so they are connected to peripheral nerves below the injury site. This allows new functional connections between the brain and previously dormant muscle or sensory system to be created.

Peripheral nerve re-routing has been around for about 100 years, and has been attempted on hundreds of patients with spinal cord injuries. While peripheral nerve re-routing can’t completely cure a spinal cord injury, it can allow for various degrees of improvement. For example, patients with C1 to C4 injuries have experienced improved respiratory function following the procedure, while some arm and hand function has been returned to patients with C5 through C9 injuries. Patients with lower spinal cord injuries have, in some cases, seen improvement in leg function.

Suppression of Scar Formation and Spinal Cord Regeneration

This theory is based on the idea that traumatic spinal cord injury causes inflammation, as well as lack of a cell—called glia—where the nerve fibers are damaged. The result is the formation of a fibrous meshwork of dense scar tissue that prevents axons from regenerating. Suppression of scar formation and spinal cord regeneration is a two-pronged approach designed to reverse the process of scarring and promote the healing of nerve fibers.

During this procedure, scar tissue is suppressed or removed in order to promote axon growth across sites of the injury. Second, a therapy designed to restore glia, such as stem cell therapy, is used to regenerate the spinal cord. While studies in humans is still relatively new, studies on animals have shown significant promise.

Four men are “wheeling” across Canada with the use of hand cycles in order to bring awareness and generate donations to research for conditions such as concussive head injury and Alzheimer’s. They believe that a donation of 30 cents by each Canadian citizen for “breakthrough” research will allow them to walk again.

This research comes from a Canadian research team at McMaster University in Hamilton. Dr. Michel Rathbone and Dr. Shucui Jiang successfully regenerated nerves in the chronically damaged spinal cords of rats with the use of adult enteric glia cells. These cells are abundant in human and animal intestines and have been found to support the nervous system.

The enteric glia cells were grown in cell cultures and then transplanted into the rat’s spinal cords where they stimulated nerves to grow, reducing the damage in the spinal cord. These cells are not only stable, they have bypassed the problem of tissue rejection by the host. In addition, this team of scientists found that a naturally occurring molecule in the body, guanosine, stimulates stem cells already present in the spinal cord to grow and develop into cells that insulate the nerve processes.

Even more interesting, this medical approach and application can be used on other diseases as well, including those of the brain.

To progress beyond animal testing, the researchers need support. You don’t have to be Canadian to pitch it - visit Wheel to Walk for more information!

Finally, a benefit from those love handles, pot bellies and beer stomachs! Scientists found that fat taken from the inner thigh and lower abdomen was rich in stem cells. This study, reported in August’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery journal, is the first of its kind to pinpoint a variation between stem cell concentrations in different portions of the body’s fat stores.

We already know that stem cells have huge potential for repairing injuries, but we also know that there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the use of embryo stem cells, the ones with the most plasticity. With the discovery of a plentiful source of adult stem cells, there is an increased potential for studying how these valuable resources can be applied to healing spine injuries, repairing bones, eradicating diseases such as cancer…all without the censor of those against embryonic stem cell research.

Of course, this journal is more concerned with the ways in which these cells can be used to benefit the plastic surgery industry. They would like to find ways to erase wrinkles and generate new tissue for their procedures, and who are we to argue? If the search for eternal youth unearths valuable resources that will help those who are trying to recover from a spinal cord injury, then we are all for it!

Scientists are exploring the ways in which your body’s sugars can be used to “create stem cell treatments for heart disease and nerve damage” according to a recent University of Manchester study.

As those with a spinal cord injury know well, nerve damage is hard if not impossible to completely recover from. This avenue of exploration may come up with some beneficial applications, making it easier for the body to repair that damage.

The sugars that our bodies produce instruct cells on “who” and what they are - what their function is in relation to the cells around them. Dr. Catherine Merry from The School of Materials in Manchester has been given a grant to figure out how cells make sugar and how that sugar influences cell behavior.

If Merry can determine how to make certain cells produce specific sugars, she can then train them to mend nerve damage along with other helpful applications. Keep an eye out for more research from the Materials Science Centre at the University of Manchester. With a major laboratory upgrade, this center is prepared to lead the way in cutting edge research covering everything from stem cells to molecular biology.

Q: Since my spinal cord injury, I have been living with chronic pain and my doctors have been unable to figure out what’s causing it. Why is it so hard to pinpoint?

A: Chronic pain is often difficult to find one specific cause for due to a combination of factors. First, patients who suffer from chronic pain, no matter what the initial injury was, often also experience anxiety and depression. These two strong emotions not only interfere with a proper diagnosis, but contribute to the pain.

One theory is that an injury causes increased nervous activity that transmits pain from the spinal cord to the brain, damaging the nerve circuits it passes through. These circuits amplify the pain beyond what the physical injury would seem to suggest.

The idea being considered by researchers is that these “pain amplifying circuits” have become self-sustaining. If this is the case, the next step is to figure out if they can be turned off or at least dialed down. We don’t have the answers yet, but at least there is some comfort in the knowledge that scientists are working on a solution.

Free-floating spinal decompression may just be what you need for back pain relief.

Dr. Kendall Gearhart is one of the first chiropractors in the country to be trained in free-floating spinal decompression (FFSD). What makes this treatment worth noting is that it depends on gravity to separate your lumbar spine from the lower part of your body instead of the traditional use of a prone machine to do the work.

The patient is strapped into a machine that restrains your upper body while the the chair you are sitting in is lowered and eventually removed. This stretches the back while gravity decompresses your spinal cord. This procedure is safe to use on people who were unable to have a traditional decompression performed - those with back fusions.

FFSD has no side effects and is said to relieve pain in seven out of ten patients. Most insurances won’t cover this treatment, so if you are going to consider it an option, be prepared to pay upwards of a thousand dollars per series of treatments.