#spinal cord injury

ALMB-0166, the first Cx43-hemichannel antibody, given as a single dose to 24 SCI patients: adverse events matched placebo, 1200/2400mg improved scores, two reached AIS E. A small, exploratory result.

Neurogenic bladder afflicts more than 80% of people with spinal cord injury. A careful reading of a preclinical study reporting that the anti-RGMa antibody elezanumab improved voiding function and neuroplasticity in rats. Efficacy in humans has not yet been shown.

A tadpole whose spinal cord is severed will regenerate; after metamorphosis, the same frog cannot, and its response closely resembles that of humans. In Chile, Dr. Slater and colleagues showed that on the non-regenerating side, mitochondria swell by day 6 after injury, cristae turn into vesicles, and the respiratory enzyme COX shuts down. Yet ATP did not fall — it rose. Genes for glycolysis and genes that mobilize fat were both switched on. That said, the extra ATP may simply have leaked out of damaged tissue. Dr. Exotaro reads this preclinical frog study.

A man paralyzed from the neck down can now move his own hand by thought alone and even feel the texture of what he grips. A team at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research has developed a 'double neural bypass (DNB)' that bridges the brain to the spinal cord and cortex at the same time. While the device is on, it takes over hand movement and touch (assist); through electrical-stimulation training it also drew out recovery that persists even after the device is switched off (therapy). Cracking an egg without breaking it, feeding himself, feeling a dog's fur again through a once-paralyzed wrist—Dr. Exotaro unpacks this landmark first-in-human study.

MSC-derived small extracellular vesicles (sEV) were given IV to spinal cord injury rats. At the same total dose, continuous infusion enhanced motor recovery more than daily injection.