Breakthroughs in Spinal Cord Injury Research - Supplemental Update - Winter 2014

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Breakthroughs in Spinal Cord Injury Research: The Role of Activity-based Therapies in Conjunction with Surgical Interventions By Cristina Sadowsky, MD January 22, 2015 (updated February 5, 2015)

THE pace of clinical research into spinal cord injury (SCI) is progressing rapidly. Researchers are now close to trialing promising interventions in humans—an advance that has clinicians and those impacted by SCI very excited. Recently, two very interesting cases have made waves in the mainstream media. In the first, five men with chronic, complete spinal cord injury who received implanted epidural stimulation reported significant neurologic gains. In this procedure, the implanted stimulator delivers a continuous electrical current to the participant’s lower spinal cord to recreate the brain’s normal signal for movement. To build on this research, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation has started “The Big Idea” campaign to fund a project that would implant epidural stimulators in 36 individuals with SCI. Commercial interests like NeuroRecovery Technologies and prominent, independent neuroscientists are also involved in this effort. The second promising report comes out of Poland, where an individual with chronic SCI demonstrated improvement in neurologic deficit after a surgery that combined two previously practiced and studied procedures. Medical teams from the UK and Poland collaborated on the transplant of olfactory ensheathing cells into the patient’s spinal cord.


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Breakthroughs in Spinal Cord Injury Research - Supplemental Update - Winter 2014 by Kennedy Krieger Institute - Issuu