German researchers enabled mice paralyzed after a spinal cord injury to walk again, establishing a neural connection that until now was considered irreparable in mammals by using a designer protein injected into the brain.
Spinal cord injuries in humans, often caused by sports or traffic accidents, paralyze them because not all of the nerve fibers that carry information between muscles and brain can grow back.
But the researchers at Ruhr University Bochum managed to stimulate the nerve cells of the paralyzed mice to regenerate with the help of a designer protein.
“What’s special about our research is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves, but that it is also transported further (through the brain),” team leader Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview.
“In this way we stimulate a very large number of nerves to regenerate with a relatively small intervention and that is ultimately why the mice can walk again.”
The paralyzed rodents who received the treatment started walking after two to three weeks, he said.
Treatment involves injecting genetic information carriers into the brain to produce the protein called hyperinterleukin-6, according to the university’s website.
The team is investigating whether the treatment can be improved.
“We also need to see whether our method works with larger mammals. We are thinking, for example, of pigs, dogs or primates, ”said Fischer.
“If it works there then, we should make sure that the therapy is safe for people too. But that will certainly take many, many years. “
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