With this newly found technique, it looks like scientists are on the way to reversing paralysis

by Adedayo Ademuwagun

When Darek Fidyka was stabbed in the back four years ago, the knife sliced his spinal cord in half and completely paralysed him from the waist down. Doctors said he might never be able to walk again, but a landmark medical treatment is now helping him recover. Now he can walk with a little support, drive and lead an independent life again. He’s believed to be the first person in the world to recover from such severe backbone injury.

The spinal cord is the medium through which the brain and the rest of the body systems communicate. The cord links to all parts of the body — the skin, the internal organs, the limbs. It carries information from those body parts to the brain and from the brain to those body parts. It’s the information the brain gets this way via the spinal cord that the brain processes and interprets. For instance, when a needle pricks us in the arm, the nerve cells in the arm send the information to the brain through the spine, and then we can feel the prick. Also, when we stand up to go for a walk, the brain, sending information through the spine, tells the nerve cells in our muscles what to do. So we can move our muscles and move our body the way we want to.

However, when something happens to the spinal cord, it disrupts its mechanism and prevents the body systems from communicating with the brain and vice versa. So when a needle pricks us in the arm, the nerve cells can’t get the information across to the brain and so the brain doesn’t ‘know’ what has happened. So we won’t feel anything. And when we want to go for a walk, the brain can’t get in touch with the muscles in order to control them. So the muscles can’t move, and therefore we can’t move.

People who survive a spinal injury are usually paralysed right from the injury point down to the rest of their body. This means, for instance, they’d not be able to walk, have sex or control their bladder. Unfortunately, this paralysis is usually irreversible because the nerve cells in the spinal cord don’t re-grow once they’re damaged.

However, scientists from Wroclaw Medical University in Poland and the University College London may have found a way around that problem now. They’ve collaborated to develop a technique that could reverse paralysis and allow spinal injury survivors lead a normal life again. The research is led by Professor Geoffrey Raisman of UCL’s Institute of Neurology and Dr Pawel Tabakow, a neurosurgeon at the Polish university.

Prof. Raisman has been researching spinal repair for decades. In 1985 he discovered a special kind of nerve cells in the nose, called olfactory ensheathing cells, or OECs. These cells transmit smell signals from the nose to the brain. He found that these cells could be used to heal spinal injuries and enable the paralysed body parts move and feel again. His experiments on animals in 1997 proved that this could work on humans, and in 2005 he began working with Dr Tabakow on how to apply the procedure on humans.

Basically, the procedure is to collect some of these cells from the nose or the brain and then place them in the space between the severed ends of the spinal cord. This causes the spinal cord’s own nerve cells at both ends to re-grow and join back together — an incredible feat that doctors previously thought impossible.

Three months after surgeons performed this operation on Darek at Wroclaw University, he began to grow some muscle in his left leg and was able to feel things again. Today, after more than a year of daily physiotherapy exercise, he can take a walk and stretch his legs. He’s also regained some bladder control and sexual function, and he’s still recovering.

Prof. Raisman described this milestone result as more impressive than man walking on the moon. He said in a BBC documentary last month, “We believe that this procedure is the breakthrough which, as it is further developed, will result in a historic change in the currently hopeless outlook for people disabled by spinal cord injury.

“This is the beginning of a repair for spinal injuries and other types of injuries, including stroke.”

Darek was glad to be making this recovery. He said in the documentary, “When there’s nothing, you can’t feel almost half of your body. You’re very helpless, lost…But when it begins to come back, it’s like starting afresh, as if you were born again.”

The research is sponsored by the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation and the UK Stem Cell Foundation. A British chef David Nicholls set up the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation after his teenage son, Dan, broke his spine in a swimming accident 11 years ago.

He said, “Paralysis is something that most of us don’t know very much about because we’re not affected by it. One of the most devastating moments a parent will ever experience is the sight of their son or daughter lying motionless in bed and facing the reality that they may never walk again…But [with this technique], I would think that within the next five years there should be some real, definite benefit for people like Dan.”

Scientists still need to carry out this technique on more patients in years of clinical trials in order to prove that the technique is replicable. However, with Darek’s amazing rise from the wheelchair, there’s real hope that scientists are on the way to reversing paralysis.

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