Spinal Tap

The world of super-league neurobiology took a turn this with the news that Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University researchers have shown that they accomplished what was previously thought impossible: tricking central nervous system cells into regeneration.

The inability of central nervous system cells to regenerate has been one of the most religiously defended dogmas in recent times. But damaging the sciatic nerve -- the main sensory nerve to the leg -- they can activate growth signals in cells in the central nervous systems of laboratory rats. If scientists can learn how to turn on growth signals without peripheral nerve injury, researchers may finally achieve what was once seen as an unreachable goal: the reconnection of a severed spinal cord.

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