The Severe Spinal Cord Injuries: Breakthrough in the Treatment

Summary

In the article “Regenerative medicine breakthrough: “Dancing molecules” successfully repair severe spinal cord injuries,” Northwestern University (2021) introduces and shortly discusses the study conducted by its researchers under the leadership of Samuel I. Stupp. The latter author and his colleagues could successfully develop a new injectable medicine that allegedly can help people effectively treat severe spinal cord injuries. So far, the treatment has been successfully tested on the group of paralyzed mice. The results revealed that the studied population recovered the ability to walk again within four weeks. Additionally, in vitro tests with human cells also provided promising results.

The reason why this treatment has proved to be quite effective lies in so-called ‘dancing molecules’. They are named this way due to their ability to synchronize the speed of their motions with organism’s molecules and therefore actively interact with and affect other cells. As a result, the positive impact that the innovative treatment method has on spinal cord injury is twofold. On the one hand, ‘dancing molecules’ help the axons and myelin – parts of the nerve cells responsible for delivering electrical impulses from cell to cell – to regenerate and, thus, recover the sensations. On the other hand, the new treatment also positively affects other cells that are positively associated with the restoration of the blood vessels, which in turn leads to the recovery of injured tissues.

Overall, the authors of the original study hope that their innovative approach to treating severe spinal cord injuries would help paralyzed people to return to active life. Moreover, they also believe that their finding can be applied in other spheres as well such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, to name a few. Finally, to address possible skepticism, the article under review indicates that the new medicine is absolutely harmless.

Addressing Questions

1. The terms that were used to find the article include ‘spinal cord injury, ‘paralysis types’, ‘ spinal cord injury treatment’, and ‘ spinal cord injury prevention.
2. The topic relates to the following Bio30 concepts: the human nervous system, the role of axons and myelin in nerve impulse transmission, and neurons recovery.

Reference

Northwestern University. (2021). Regenerative medicine breakthrough: “Dancing molecules” successfully repair severe spinal cord injuries. SciTechDaily. Web.