Research Raises Hope of Spinal Nerve Healing

A laboratory experiment that indicates that severed spinal nerves can grow new connections in adult mammals means “suddenly we can be very hopeful” that a way will be found to restore function in human patients, scientists said Thursday.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden report that they successfully grew new nerve connections across gaps of severed spinal cords in laboratory rats and that the experiment restored some motion and sensation to paralyzed hind legs of the animals.

Lars Olson, a Karolinska researcher and senior author of the study to be published today in the journal Science, said all 23 of the test animals regained some motion and some of the animals recovered up to 20% of the function.

“About a month after treatment, the rats began to pull their hind legs back under their bodies again,” Olson said. “They began to flex their legs” he said, noting “there was movement in each of the joints.”

Control rats, who received no treatment, could only drag their lifeless hind limbs and never showed improvement, he said.

“If this can be replicated in other labs, we are looking at a remarkable finding,” said Dr. Paul J. Reier, a spinal cord researcher at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

Dr. Wise Young, a nerve system researcher at the New York University Medical Center, said Olson’s work lays to rest the long-held belief that severed spinal cord nerves can never be reconnected.

“Suddenly, we can be very hopeful,” he said. “It shows for the first time [in mature animals] that the spinal cord can regenerate and give functional results.”