Spinal nerve work with rats shows promise

Many scientists are working on treatments to help people with spinal cord injuries walk. Now there's a striking new demonstration of how one approach might work: Spinal nerve stimulation helped rats in a Swiss lab overcome paralysis to walk and climb stairs.

That may sound impressive, but similar progress has been made in people, too. The difference this time is the particular technique used.

"It's a natural extension of exciting work that's been done by many groups," said Dr. John McDonald, director of the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. He wasn't involved in the research.

In the new experiment, reported in today's issue of the journal Science, researchers stimulated spinal nerve circuits and used physical training. The stimulation was electrical current from implanted electrodes plus injections of a chemical mix.

To do the training, the rats were placed in a harness so that only their hind legs reached the ground. Then they were placed on a treadmill, which produced only reflexive stepping, and on stationary ground, where they had to choose to make their legs move if they wanted to reach a piece of chocolate.

-- AP