sci tagged posts

Scientists exploring the links between a spinal cord injury, inflammation and immune function have turned their attention to a genome-level analysis of the gut microbial community, with early study results offering hints at potential new approaches to aid healing.

In mice, refeeding a strain of bacteria that was depleted after spinal cord injury (SCI) lowered inflammation and stabilized weight loss...

“We know from previous research that macrophages are versatile, and signals at the injury site can stimulate repair or destruction–or confusingly, both,” said John Gensel Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physiology in the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center at the University of Kentucky. “But the mechanisms through which these signals stimulate the good and/or bad functions in macrophages are not known. So the next big question to answer in the efforts to understand and treat SCI was, ‘Why?'”

Gensel and Popovich looked at more than 50 animals with spinal cord injury to try to identify which macrophage receptors promoted neuronal repair and which directed the destructive process...