Kate Willette “Improved voluntary hand function occurred within a single session in every subject tested.” That’s the killer sentence from a new study soon to be published in the Journal of Neurotrauma. The principal investigator is our old friend, Professor Reggie Edgerton, who has been looking for ways to help people...
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Paving the Way for a Cure campaign receives $25,000 donation from Wawanesa Insurance
This week, the Canadian Spinal Research Organization (CSRO) received a $25,000 donation from Wawanesa insurance. This generous donation will support the ‘Paving a Way for a Cure’ campaign and Wawanesa will sponsor one subject in an upcoming study on epidural stimulation. Our Paving the Way for a Cure campaign was...
MTO Reconnection Golf Tournament 2018
The 11th Annual MTO Reconnection Tournament was held at Cardinal Golf Club on June 11th, and it was a tremendous success. MTO employees, retirees, and other notable members of the road-building community all came out to show their support for Carl Hennum & the CSRO/ASRO. Carl, who was an Assistant...
Gene jumpstarts regeneration of damaged nerve cells
Searching the entire genome, a Yale research team has identified a gene that when eliminated can spur regeneration of axons in nerve cells severed by spinal cord injury. “For the first time, the limits on nerve fiber regeneration were studied in an unbiased way across nearly all genes,” said Stephen...
UCLA researchers find a way to repair nerve damage with stem cells
UCLA researchers have developed a way to use stem cells to help potentially rebuild damaged spinal cords. In a study published in January, researchers in the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research established a way to derive sensory interneurons, which are cells involved...
Closed-loop neuromodulation restores network connectivity and motor control after spinal cord injury
Abstract: Recovery from serious neurological injury requires substantial rewiring of neural circuits. Precisely-timed electrical stimulation could be used to restore corrective feedback mechanisms and promote adaptive plasticity after neurological insult, such as spinal cord injury (SCI) or stroke. This study provides the first evidence that closed-loop vagus nerve stimulation (CLV)...
Restorative effects of human neural stem cell grafts on the primate spinal cord
We grafted human spinal cord–derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) into sites of cervical spinal cord injury in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Under three-drug immunosuppression, grafts survived at least 9 months postinjury and expressed both neuronal and glial markers. Monkey axons regenerated into grafts and formed synapses. Hundreds of thousands of...