Hundreds of people suffer from spinal cord injuries every year. While others are able to retain most of their functions, most are left paralyzed or quadriplegic. Thus, the new invention called e-dura is an exciting breakthrough we can all look forward to.
The spinal cord serves as the road network between your brain and different parts of the body, such as your limbs. When it's damaged perhaps through an accident or another form of injury, these pathways malfunction, and the necessary nerve signals are prevented from coming through.
Scientists have been therefore working on devices that can help the body regain these nerve signals despite the damage to the spinal cord. However, there's one huge problem: the electronic devices they came up with can lead to more damage or even infection. This is because they are made of stiff materials that the body may even reject.
According to one of the senior researchers Stephanie Lacour, the spinal cord is a very flexible component that can actually expand and relax. The material that should be implanted must also be capable of doing the same thing.
Keeping these issues in mind, the researchers of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology used silicone, which is very flexible and soft. Gold wires structured like a mesh are also integrated into the implant. Gold in its purest form is very malleable and flexible.
Then they tested the implant on rats. After eight weeks, the rats that had e-dura didn't reject the implant and didn't suffer from any form of infection or inflammation unlike those that had been fitted by a stiffer material, which caused an alteration in the shape of the spinal cord.
They then placed the implant near the motor cortex of the brain to determine if it can record impulses from the neurons, which the implant successfully did. For the last phase of the experiment, they mimicked the kinds of spinal injuries humans get during accidents on rats and implanted the animals, which then received electrical stimulation. The implant can also allow serotonin to flow. The rats were able to regain their ability to walk in only a few weeks.
It may take some time before this science and technology is available to humans, but we may be getting there. You can read more about the research in the recent issue of Science.
