NERVE cells in a rat’s central nervous system have been persuaded to regrow
through scar tissue. The discovery could remove one of the obstacles to
repairing spinal cords.
While the central nervous systems of some creatures can regrow after damage,
mammals traded in this ability long ago in exchange for a more stable system.
One of the key ways our body stops our brains and spines healing themselves is
by making proteins that inhibit neural regrowth. Some of these proteins tend to
build up in neural scar tissue after injury.
Now James Fawcett of Cambridge University and his colleagues have…
