& Wellbeing

e neurons that operate out walking reside in the lumbar spinal cord. To walk, the brain broadcasts commands through descending pathways that cascade from the brainstem to activate these neurons. A severe spinal cord injury (SCI) scatters this exquisitely organised communication system. Whereas the neurons located in the lumbar spinal cord are not directly damaged by the injury, the depletion of essential spinal commands renders them nonfunctional. e result is permanent paralysis.

Now, though, a new study by scientists at the US NeuroRestore Research Centre has identi ed the type of neuron that is activated and remodeled by spinal cord stimulation, allowing patients to stand up, walk and rebuild their muscles – thus improving their quality of life. is discovery, made in nine patients, marks a fundamental, clinical breakthrough.

e study was published last week in the journals Nature.

In a multi-year research programme co-ordinated by the two directors of .NeuroRestore – Grégoire Courtine, a neuroscience professor and Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon – patients who had been paralysed by a spinal cord injury and who underwent targeted epidural electrical stimulation of the area that controls leg movement were able to regain some motor function.

In the new study, not only was the e cacy of this therapy demonstrated in nine patients, but the improved motor function was shown to last in patients after the neuro-rehabilitation process was completed and when the electrical stimulation was turned o .

is suggested that the nerve bres used for walking had ‘reorganised’ them- e report, known as the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, warns that, if humanity fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, increasingly worse heat records will tumble beyond this decade.

One year in the next ve will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a two-in-three chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5°C global warming threshold, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

So what is driving the bleak outlook for the next ve years? An expected El Niño, on top of the overall global warming trend, will likely push the global temperature to record levels.

Has the Paris Agreement already failed if the global average temperature exceeds the 1.5°C threshold in one of the next ve years?

No, but it will be a stark warning of what’s in store