A Quest To Prove Spinal Cord Injuries Aren’t A Life-Long Sentence
A UCLA researcher is offering a glimmer of hope with his work with electrical currents and the spinal cord. Physicians and patient advocates say that it is one of the first approaches that may help large numbers of patients in the near future.
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A Dogged Quest To Fix Broken Spinal Cords Pays Off With New Hope For The Paralyzed
There are tiny rat treadmills in the lab. And jars of Nutella, also for the rats. There are video cameras, heaps of electrodes, and instruments for slicing frozen brain tissue. And in the center of it all: Reggie Edgerton, a 75-year-old physiologist [ at the University of California, Los Angeles] who has spent four decades on a stubborn quest to prove, in the face of scientific ridicule, that severed spinal cords can be jolted back to life — and that paralyzed patients need not be paralyzed forever. Now, he’s got the data to prove it. (McFarling, 3/30)