
Most people with spinal cord injury are paralyzed from the injury site down, even when the cord isn’t completely severed. Why don’t the spared portions of the spinal cord keep working, allowing at least some movement? A new study just published online by Cell provides insight into why these nerve pathways remain quiet. Most intriguingly, it shows that injection with a small-molecule compound can revive these circuits in paralyzed mice — and get them walking again.
“We saw 80 percent of mice treated with this compound recover their stepping ability,” says Zhigang He, PhD, of Boston Children’s Hospital’s F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, the study’s senior investigator. “For this fairly severe type of spinal cord injury, this is the most significant functional recovery we know of.” …