What is it about?
Salamanders can spontaneously walk and swim again 6 weeks after we cut their spinal cord. We looked into this and found that the spinal cord have the ability to create new cells after being cut. A growth factor (fibroblast growth factor 2) is secreted by its cells which helps new cells to be born.
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Why is it important?
This was long searched in humans because accidents leaving tetraplegic people are still the biggest problem in science. Knowing that an animal can renew its nervous system is revolutionary. We can thus apply this knowledge to the human research on nervous system lesion.
Perspectives
If we can find similar growth factors in the human nervous system, we will be able to save lots of accidental loss of movement. This will change lots of lifestyles for people who got a road or sport accident.
Marie Moftah
Alexandria University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Neurogenesis after complete spinal cord transection in Pleurodeles waltlii, Frontiers in Neuroscience, January 2010, Frontiers,
DOI: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.12.00034.
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