Scientific Advances on Paralaysis
I ran across breaking and optimistic news this morning. As reported in Washington's Reuters: 
The research, published on Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that the brain and spinal cord are able to reorganize functions after a spinal cord injury to restore communication at the cellular level needed for walking.
Spinal cord damage obstructs the pathways the brain uses to transit messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Experts had thought the only way someone with such an injury could walk again was to somehow regrow the long nerve highways linking the brain and base of the spinal cord.
But what they found in this study was that when spinal cord damage blocked direct signals from the brain, the messages were able to make detours around the injury. Rather than using the long nerve highways, the message would be transmitted over a series of shorter connections to deliver the brain's command to move the legs, the researchers said.
I will keep apprised of new advances and pass them on.
