Posts tagged spinal cord stimulation
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Scientists discover how to restore ability to grasp in paralysed hand
Pioneering research by scientists at a North East university could help people who have been paralysed to re-gain the use of their hands.
The researchers at Newcastle University have been able to restore the ability to grab objects with a paralysed hand using spinal cord stimulation.
The work, which has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, could help stroke and spinal injury victims as the research has shown that by connecting the brain to a computer and then the computer to the spinal cord, it is possible to restore movement.
The discovery opens up the possibility of new treatments within the next few years which could help stroke victims or those with spinal cord injuries regain some movement in their arms and hands as currently there is no cure for upper limb paralysis.
The work, led by Dr Andrew Jackson, Research Fellow at Newcastle University and Dr Jonas Zimmermann, now at Brown University in America, is published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.
Long-term spinal cord stimulation stalls symptoms of Parkinson’s-like disease
Researchers at Duke Medicine have shown that continuing spinal cord stimulation appears to produce improvements in symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and may protect critical neurons from injury or deterioration.
The study, performed in rats, is published online Jan. 23, 2014, in the journal Scientific Reports. It builds on earlier findings from the Duke team that stimulating the spinal cord with electrical signals temporarily eased symptoms of the neurological disorder in rodents.
"Finding novel treatments that address both the symptoms and progressive nature of Parkinson’s disease is a major priority," said the study’s senior author Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine. "We need options that are safe, affordable, effective and can last a long time. Spinal cord stimulation has the potential to do this for people with Parkinson’s disease."
Parkinson’s disease is caused by the progressive loss of neurons that produce dopamine, an essential molecule in the brain, and affects movement, muscle control and balance.
L-dopa, the standard drug treatment for Parkinson’s disease, works by replacing dopamine. While L-dopa helps many people, it can cause side effects and lose its effectiveness over time. Deep brain stimulation, which emits electrical signals from an implant in the brain, has emerged as another valuable therapy, but less than 5 percent of those with Parkinson’s disease qualify for this treatment.
"Even though deep brain stimulation can be very successful, the number of patients who can take advantage of this therapy is small, in part because of the invasiveness of the procedure," Nicolelis said.
In 2009, Nicolelis and his colleagues reported in the journal Science that they developed a device for rodents that sends electrical stimulation to the dorsal column, a main sensory pathway in the spinal cord carrying information from the body to the brain. The device was attached to the surface of the spinal cord in rodents with depleted levels of dopamine, mimicking the biologic characteristics of someone with Parkinson’s disease. When the stimulation was turned on, the animals’ slow, stiff movements were replaced with the active behaviors of healthy mice and rats.
Because research on spinal cord stimulation in animals has been limited to the stimulation’s acute effects, in the current study, Nicolelis and his colleagues investigated the long-term effects of the treatment in rats with the Parkinson’s-like disease.
For six weeks, the researchers applied electrical stimulation to a particular location in the dorsal column of the rats’ spinal cords twice a week for 30-minute sessions. They observed a significant improvement in the rats’ symptoms, including improved motor skills and a reversal of severe weight loss.
In addition to the recovery in clinical symptoms, the stimulation was associated with better survival of neurons and a higher density of dopaminergic innervation in two brain regions controlling movement – the loss of which cause Parkinson’s disease in humans. The findings suggest that the treatment protects against the loss or damage of neurons.
Clinicians are currently using a similar application of dorsal column stimulation to manage certain chronic pain syndromes in humans. Electrodes implanted over the spinal cord are connected to a portable generator, which produces electrical signals that create a tingling sensation to relieve pain. Studies in a small number of humans worldwide have shown that dorsal column stimulation may also be effective in restoring motor function in people with Parkinson’s disease.
"This is still a limited number of cases, so studies like ours are important in examining the basic science behind the treatment and the potential mechanisms of why it is effective," Nicolelis said.
The researchers are continuing to investigate how spinal cord stimulation works, and are beginning to explore using the technology in other neurological motor disorders.
Scientists behind groundbreaking research that enabled rats with severed spines to run again after two weeks have outlined their plans for human trials.
The technology brings fresh hope to sufferers of spinal cord injuries, and the team say they hope the first humans could be implanted with the technology within months.
Using a cocktail of drugs and electrical impulses, researchers hope to begin testing the project to ‘regrow’ nerves linking the spinal cord to the brain in five patients in a Swiss clinic.
Last June in the journal Science, Grégoire Courtine, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), reported that rats in his lab are not only voluntarily initiating a walking gait, but they were sprinting, climbing up stairs, and avoiding obstacles after a couple of weeks of neurorehabilitation with a combination of a robotic harness and electrical and chemical stimulation.
At the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, Courtine revealed the next step for the research.
He has since repeated the study in rats with bruised spines, which more closely resembles human trauma patients, and after a few weeks they could walk with no assistance.
He now believes that the technique could help people who have been immobile for up to two years.
Although full human trials are still a few years off, he plans to attempt electrical stimulation on five patients who have limited leg movement in the coming months.
‘We know that spinal cord stimulation is safe, we know that training is good, so we want to start the first trial in people who can move their legs but cannot walk independently.
'So we will implant five patients, we have a new technology which allows us to stimulate the spinal cord of humans just like we do in the rats.’
Once they have refined the technique, they hope to fully rehabilitate patients with moderately damaged spines, while others would regain some movement.
‘We already have preliminary data from the rats with these clinically relevant lesions is that a number of them would recover at the end of the training and could walk without any help. It depends on the severity of the damage,’ he said.
‘But if you talk to the patient and you tell them at least you could use it at home to cook, to watch TV and have normal activity, they say their life would be so different. So it is less ambitious, but we are talking about improving the quality of life, allowing people to stand and take a few steps at home with a walker.’