Effort to correct walking defects via robotic devices
Published: May 18, 2010Using drugs, electrical stimulation, and exercise therapy, UCLA researchers
are helping paralyzed rats walk again after a spinal cord injury. Their
findings, which are published in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience,
indicate that the regeneration of severed nerve fibers might not be necessary
in helping paralyzed rats walk while also supporting their weight. First, the
researchers placed paralyzed rats that had no voluntary movement of their
hind legs on a moving treadmill. Then they gave the rats drugs that act on
serotonin and administered low levels of electrical currents to the area
below the spinal cord injury. This combination sparked walking in the rats’
hind legs. The continual treadmill therapy during the course of weeks helped
the rats regain weight-bearing walking, but they were not able to walk on
their own due to the spinal cord injury. Although this is early-stage
research, it could have implications for neuroprosthetic devices in terms of
how the devices activate the spinal cord’s rhythmic circuitry.
Source:
http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/blog/?p=1911
Links:
Paralyzed Rats Walk Again
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_89602.html
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=11163921
V. Reggie Edgerton
http://www.physci.ucla.edu/research/edgerton/index.php
