Slicing Restores Impulses to SEVERED SPINAL CORDS.

• Position: Electrical nerve impusles restored in a guinea pig - Brief Article

Researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., have restored electrical nerve impulses in the severed spinal cord of a mammal for the first time. They conducted their experiments on isolated spinal cords removed from adult guinea pigs, fusing the cut nerve fibers using a polymer called PEG. Electrical impulses were restored in all of the guinea pig cords used in the study. The repaired spinal cords transmitted between five and 58% of pre-cut impulses.

Significant numbers, but not all, of the nerve fibers within the cut spinal

cord were reconnected. Researchers demonstrated this by passing special dyes through the repaired nerve fibers.

"If you have even five percent of the nerve fibers carrying nerve impulses, you'll get significantly more than five percent back in terms of restored behavior," explains Richard B. Borgens, professor of developmental anatomy. "This technique may be a revolutionary new way of dealing with injuries to the nervous system. It's too soon to know whether it would help patients with old injuries, but it is likely to be useful in treating recent injuries."

The isolated spinal cords remain viable for about 36 hours after removal. Borgens says the results of studies in live animals will shed more light on how permanent the new technique might be.

Borgens and Riyi Shi, an assistant professor in Purdue's Center for Paralysis Research, applied polyethylene glycol, or PEG--a nontoxic, water-soluble polymer used in medicine and cosmetics--across the region of the guinea pig's spinal cord that had been...