INTRODUCTION
The spinal cord is a major channel in the body where motor and sensory information travels from the brain to the body. It has white matter that surrounds a central gray matter. The gray matter is where most of the neuronal cells are located. Injury to the spinal cord will affect the conduction of information across any part of the spinal cord where the damage is located (Maynard et al., 1997). This will often result in permanent disability of a certain muscle or region of the body (Meletis et al., 2008) and a loss of tissue where the damage is located (Peng et al., 2009). As of now, there is no treatment for spinal cord injury expect for steroids. All steroids can do is provide protect of the spinal cord from secondary injury for specific patients (Peng et al., 2009).
Two treatment types are being studied for spinal cord injury: injection of an antagonist of the ATP-sensitive receptor P2X7 and transplantation of human embryonic stem cell derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. In the spinal cord, ATP can act as an excitatory neurotransmitter (Domercq et al,. 2009). ATP is released in excess for six hours after the initial damage. Most tissue damage happens after the main injury occurs, so finding a treatment that will slow the secondary injury down is a main interest for clinical treatment studies. Injecting a P2X7 antagonist that is sensitive to ATP into the region of the spinal cord that has been damaged has been found to slow down secondary injury (Peng et al., 2009). Also, demyelination of neurons can be found after spinal cord injury. Transplanting human embryonic stem cell derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells into the damaged tissue has shown to help with remyelinating the neurons. Th...
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..., Ducker, T.B., ….. Young, W. (1997). International Standards for Neurological and Functional Classification of Spinal Cord Injury: International Medical Society of Paraplegia, 35, 266 – 274.
Meletis, K., Barnabe-Heider, F., Carlen, M., Evergren, E., Tomilin, N., Shupliakov, O., & Frisen, J. (2008). Spinal Cord Injury Reveals Multilineage Differentiation of Ependymal Cells: PLoS Biology, 6, 1494 – 1507.
Peng, W., Cotrina, M.L., Han, X., Yu, H., Bekar, L., Blum, L., ….. Nedergaard, M. (2009). Systemic Administration of an Antagonist of the ATP-Sensitive Receptor P2X7 Improves Recovery after Spinal Cord Injury: PNAS, 106, 12489 – 12493.
Sharp, J., Frame, J., Siegenthaler, M., Nistor, G., Keirstead, H.S. (2010). Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Transplants Improve Recovery after Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Stem Cells, 28, 152 – 163.
It has been shown that intrathecal administriton of GABA receptor antagonists cause hyperalgesia and allodynia. Constitutive, the increase in the endogenous GABA activity in the spinal cord alleviate pain resulting from noxious and innoxious mechanical and thermal stimuli. Different GABA receptors have different roles in alleviating thermal and mechanical pain in different animal pain models. There is no study to date that has examined the involvement of GABA A and GABA B in sensory dimension of neuropathic pain resulting from compression of spinal cord. The current study tests the hypothesis that GABA A or GABA B receptors contributes to the allodynia and hyperalgesia observed after spinal cord injury. The results showed that the effect of GABA A and GABA B receptors on mechanical hyperalgesia is similar but these receptors have different effects on thermal hyperalgesia. While using baclofen as GABA B receptor agonist does not affect the thermal pain, thermal hyperalgesia resulting from spinal cord injury was greatly alleviated by different doses of GABA A agonist, muscimol. Both Baclofen and muscimol are able to reduce the mechanical and cold allodynia has been seen after spinal cord injury but the effect of baclofen is dose dependent with no effect in higher doses used in this study. While almost all doses of muscimol were used in this study reduce the amount of cold and mechanical allodynia. The other result obtained in this study is the short term effect of GABA agonist. The anitinociceptive effect of Baclofen and muscimol appear to be maxium at 15 min after injection and gradually diminished by time and their analgesic effect disappeared 3 hours after injection.
Peripheral and central mechanisms involving nerve lesions and their input are substantial when perceiving phantom pain. Due to the impairment of peripheral nerves in the process of amputation, regenerative sprouting of damaged axons occurs and the activity rate of inflamed C-fibres and demyelinated A-fibres spontaneously increases (Flor, 2002). As a consequence of this nerve injury, a neuroma, which is a mass of pruned and tangled axons, may form in the residual limb producing abnormal (ectopic) activity (Katz, 1992). Flor, Nikolajsen and Jenson (2006) proposed that ectopic discharge from a neuroma in the stump illustrates abnormal afferent input to the spinal cord, which is a possible mechanism for unpro...
Scientists are on the brink of doing the unthinkable-replenishing the brains of people who have suffered strokes or head injuries to make them whole again. If that is not astonishing enough, they think they may be able to reverse paralysis. The door is at last open to lifting the terrifying sentence these disorders still decree-loss of physical function, cognitive skills, memory, and personality.
These include the specificity theory which maintains that specific fibers and pain receptors are activated by injury after which the pain signals are projected via the spinal pathway to an area in the brain that interprets the pain. In this regard, the specificity theory virtually equates the peripheral injury with the psychological experience caused by the pain (Anderson, 2004, p. 355). However, this theory has been found to harbor several limitations as research about pain has intensified with time. In light of this, the gate theory that was proposed by Melzack and Wall has had a major contribution to the understanding of pain transmission and perception (Pain Game Part 2, 2011). Research has demonstrated that pain is affected by psychological and physiological factors which helps to explain the mechanism underlying inhibition and/or facilitaion of pai...
...eal or repair themselves, but after a breakthrough in Spinal cord research, done on a rat, it was discovered that the spinal cord “can support the development of transplanted cells”. Several anesthetised rats were given spinal cord injuries and after about two weeks, scientists transplanted human nerve stem cells into their injured spinal cords. Three months after the rats were injected with the human nerve stem cells, the scientists found that some of the stem cells had developed into support cells instead of nerve cells, yet some had developed into mature nerve cells. After about six months, the scientists discovered to their disbelief not only did the human stem cells survive in the rats’ spinal cords, but they underwent mitosis at least twice, and there were three times the amount of human stem cells found in the rats than the amount that was injected initially.
Spinal cord injury symptoms can range from minor to severe and sometimes can even result in death. If you are experie...
There are about a quarter of a million people in the United States living with spinal cord injuries. In addition, between 7,600 and 10,000 new injuries occur each year. Nearly half of these new injuries will occur in young people between the ages of 16 and 30. I have become very interested in the research to find a cure for spinal cord injuries and hope to share some of the information I found with you today. In order for you to fully understand the details I will be sharing with you, I’d like to begin with a general overview of the spinal cord before moving on to the three stages of research I will cover: past research which has lead to present treatments, recent research, and the present and future research.
As defined by the Laser Spine Institute, Spinal Stenosis is the narrowing of the spinal canal by a piece of bone or disc material. This can cause weakness in your extremities. This narrowing results in pressure on the spinal cord and/or nerves. Spinal stenosis can occur in a variety of ways in your spine. Most cases of spinal stenosis occurs in the lower back (lumbar spine) and will affect the sciatic nerve. Most often, spinal stenosis results from degenerative changes in the spine caused by aging. Tumor injuries and other diseases can also lead to the narrowing in the spinal canal.
The pathological processes that develop following brain injury inevitably lead to neuronal death, which can be immediate or delayed. Blood brain barrier disruption, resulting in neuronal loss, might also influence the long-term traumatic brain injury complications which are characterized by neuronal death.[66, 67]
The objectives of the study were, to determine the prevalence of pressure ulcer in spinal cord injury patients and find out the possible underlying factors for the development of pressure sore in spinal cord injury patients.
Historically, each year 11,000 people are added to the existing 230,000 cases of Spinal Cord Injury in the United States. Sad to say that young population ranging from 16-30 years old are affected by the Spinal Cord Injury. Learning the physiology of central nervous system is essential in understanding the function of spinal column. Central Nervous system is made up of spinal cord and the brain. The brain responds and receives sensory input from the spinal cord. The spinal cord is the communication link between the brain and the rest of the body. The spinal cord is a thick whitish cord of nerve tissue that extends from the brain to a point in the lower back called “conus medularis”. The spinal cord is encased in a protective canal that is formed by spinal vertebrae. The vertebrae and nerves are classified into several sections beginning from the neck. The first section shows seven cervical vertebrae, C-1 TO C-7. The next section is the 12 thoracic vertebrae, T1-T12, the 3rd section is called lumbar, L1-L5, the 4th section has 5 sacral and 1 coccygeal vertebrae. Each section is numbered from the top with a letter that corresponds to spinal section. For example the first section below the skull is C-1, the next section is T-1 in the thoracic section. When the spinal column is injured the communication would be disrupted between the brain and the parts of the body that is affected. The injury could be complete when no nerve fibers are functioning below the level of injury or incomplete when one or more nerve fibers are secure. The amount of functional loss depends on the level of injury. The higher the damaged the more of the body is affected including the neurological completeness of the injury. Individuals with neurological...
Researchers purposely began paralyzing mice by giving them contusions (a type of spinal cord injury caused by great impact to the spinal cord) and injected the sites of damage with a plethora of different stems cells in combination with intensive therapy. This aids in producing a nerve-insulating substance called myelin that can lead to functional improvements in animals with spinal cord injury. Overtime, helplessly paralyzed mouse legs were slowly but surely becoming mobile—which is what led to the current trials we have being tested on spinal cord injury patients today, except testing with mice is undeniably less expensive considering the fact that a mouse’s body being fumbled with doesn’t compare to the significance of a human being who sustained an accidental spinal cord injury. On top of that, these trials have the potential to make “spinal cord injury” a term of the past, but that dream to many could be highly unlikely if medical research facilities don't receive a considerable amount of funding. The average cost of a clinical trial involving stem cells in the U.S varies from hundreds to hundreds of thousands, which could leave a great majority of those victimized by paralysis vulnerable to feeling hopeless as their perpetual medical bills continue to
An ambulance should be called the second this injury is suspected, and a professional physician is needed to correctly determine the plan of action. The physician on duty will then perform similar sensation tests, and employ the use of radiography, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), or Computed Tomography (CT). This is more technologically savvy than an x-ray, as you can see more parts of the body, to determine if everything is in place, other than just the bones. In the event of the diagnosis of this injury, the severity will play a major role. In most cases, surgical intervention is necessary. The cervical spine is so fragile, in itself and it’s surroundings, a physician may need to place things in their rightful locations, with the use of pins and other tools. Following surgery, or without, rehabilitation in the form of physical therapy and more is almost always needed. The use of walking modalities is sometimes needed as well, also depending on where the injury occurred and whether the internal spinal cord was damaged as a
This may result in instant pain relief. Your pain may be greatly reduced during the treatments, but you'll probably need a few weeks to feel sustained relief because you need to allow time for you spine to heal. Another benefit of spinal traction is that it allows blood flow to resume to a normal level in your spine and discs. The blood flow delivers oxygen and nutrients to the tissues so healing is accelerated. In this way, healing and pain relief happens gradually over the course of your therapy.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement (Dugdale, Koch, and Zieve 2010). In ALS, nerve c...