16
POPSA Squirt of Stem Cell Gel Heals Brain Injuries
more: The donor cells often fail to grow or stimulate repair at the injury site, possibly because of the inflammation and scarring present there. The injury site also typically has very limited blood supply and connective tissue, which might prevent donor cells from getting the nutrients they require. Dr. Zhang's gel, however, can be loaded with different chemicals to stimulate various biological processes at the site of injury. In previous research done on rats, she was able to use the gel to help re-establish full blood supply at the site of brain injury. This could help create a better environment for donor cells. In a follow-up study, Dr. Zhang loaded the gel with immature stem cells, as well as the chemicals they needed to develop into full-fledged adult brain cells. When rats with severe brain injuries were treated with this mixture for eight weeks, they showed signs of significant recovery. The new gel could treat patients at varying stages following injury, and is expe
12
POPS"MIT Team Discovers 'Superspeed' Human Brain Programming" more: Their experiments found that the brain adapted input from other regions into the blind spot within seconds. They related this to the idea of "referred sensations", where the brain remaps signals from a missing body part to input from somewhere else that's still attached. Experiments with stroke victims who'd permanently lost part of the vision gave the same results: the bleeding of information from the remaining nerves into the blank region. Of course vision isn't quite the same as a body part, but the idea is the same: how neurons adapt to deal with missing information, and how they can incorporate data from other body parts with amazing speed. Extremely good news for those waiting for the technology to implant extra connectors into their heads. Luke McKinney.
2
Clips
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update