Paraplegic Rats Enabled To "Walk" Again 99
eldavojohn notes a paper released in Nature Neuroscience today describing work in which paraplegic rats were enabled to walk again as early as a week after injury and treatment. The process involves a serotonin-influencing drug and electrical stimulation of the spine, along with an incentive to the paralyzed back legs to move — namely, being placed on a treadmill. Soon a poorly understood spinal mechanism called the "central pattern generator" kicks in and the rats' legs move under the stimulus of a rhythmic signal from the spine (the brain is not involved). Eurekalert reports, "Daily treadmill training over several weeks eventually enabled the rats to regain full weight-bearing walking, including backwards, sideways and at running speed. However, the injury still interrupted the brain's connection to the spinal cord-based rhythmic walking circuitry, leaving the rats unable to walk of their own accord."
For those who don't know... (Score:4, Informative)
Edgerton's team tested rats with complete spinal injuries that left no voluntary movement in their hind legs.
That is usually code for "we severed the spine so we could test out this technique"
Re:In other news, Galvani noticed this 220 years a (Score:2, Informative)
They already exist. After a bad motorcycle accident (almost severed a hand off), I had the use of an electrical muscle stimulator that would shock the surface of my skin causing the muscles to spasm. Not as effective as regular therapies and exercise, but I could have it on all the time getting continuous benefit.
Re:a try at a constructive reply (Score:3, Informative)
Moderations are often strange and mysterious, but in this case they weren't exactly the same things. For one thing rather than just -speculating- that the researchers provided information as to how they paralyzed the rats, I provided the link. I also explained WHY it sometimes seems incomplete.
Not that it made my post on-topic and insightful as opposed to offtopic, just that may have been some of the odd thinking behind the moderations.