Scientists Achieve Breakthrough In Spinal Bypass Surgery

New York, NY (AHN) - A breakthrough in spinal surgery is offering hope to victims of paralysis. Dr. John Martin and his colleagues at Columbia University in New York say the technique, which has been tested on rats, involves bypassing damaged tissue in the spine.

To test the bypass method on rodents, scientists selected a motor nerve branching from the healthy cord above the injury and cut it away from the abdominal muscle to which it is normally attached.

By stretching he free end across the injured section of spinal cord, researchers then used a protein "glue" to fix it. After two weeks, it was found that the graft had sprouted new extensions.

The extensions then begun to form connections or synapses with the motor nerves in the isolated lower spine. The spinal cord above the injury made the lower limbs of the rats to twitch thus signalling the flow of motor signals along the entire length of the spine.

However, because very few signals can pass through the injured region of the spine, it is often left isolated from the brain. But scientists plan to plug in new connections to bypass the damaged region and with a little surgical assistance, researchers hope that spinal cord nerves above an injury might be capable of making such connections with nerves lower down the spine.

New Scientist magazine reports that rats used in the experiment showed some signs of renewed movement and researchers are now looking for ways to repair that damage. They also plan to use growth-promoting chemicals to encourage healing across the 'gap', and grafts of nerve fibres from elsewhere in the body.

The scientists also added that removing the nerve from the abdominal muscle did not appear to cause any major side effects and as nearby nerves pick up the slack.

Though the spinal bypass surgery has considerable clinical potential but researchers say it is still too early to tell whether it would work in humans.