A lot of Hollywood movie trailers like to say, “From the producers that brought you (insert movie)!” — well, our San Diego spinal cord injury lawyers bring you this blog “From the producers of other successful nerve damage treatments!”

Led by Richard Borgens, the Center for Paralysis Research at the Purdue School of Veterinary Medicine may have developed a paralysis treatment that repairs damaged spinal cord nerve cells.  Using a sugar called chitosan, these scientists have found a way to get an injured spinal cord in a guinea pig to retransmit signals to the brain.

Could chitosan be the long-awaited cure for paralysis from spinal cord injuries?

Could this sugar, chitosan, be used to target and repair damaged spinal cord nerve cells? (Source: Horizon Naturals)

In the past, Borgens and his colleges improved the walking abilities of patients with multiple sclerosis with Ampyra and used a spinal cord simulator for use in people with severe spinal cord injuries.  Now, his Purdue researchers have found a way to heal damaged spinal cords while also helping them regain their ability to send signals to and from the brain.

It all began with the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to seal and repair damaged spinal cord nerve cells.  Unfortunately, PEG could be toxic to patients.  To combat that problem Borgens and his team needed to find a safer way to repair severely injured spinal cords.  Physiologist Riyi Shi and chemist Youngnam Cho told him that some sugars can target and repair damaged cellular membranes.  The next challenge was finding a sugar that was as effective as PEG at targeting and repairing spinal cord nerve cells.

Cho recommended that Borgens’ team try a modified version of chitin, one of the most common sugars found in crustacean shells.  By converting chitin into chitosan, Cho found this new sugar to be a highly effective spinal cord injury treatment.  By testing their studies in a guinea pig, chitosan effectively sealed off the damaged spinal nerve cell membranes, which allowed the spinal cord to begin sending and receiving signals from the brain 30 minutes later.

Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here, as many experimental paralysis treatments never make it past the trial stage.  Still though, anything that provides  hope for the millions of people living with paralysis is a good thing.  Our spinal cord injury lawyers hope that one day we will not need to write a blog about future treatments, that one day, people that were told they would never walk again will in fact walk again.

If you or someone you know has a spinal cord injury or were paralyzed, contact our bilingual San Diego law firm at 1-800-655-6585 for a FREE consultation with an experienced spinal cord injury lawyer.  You may also click here and submit your case for a FREE online review.  We work on a contingency fee basis, which means you owe us nothing until we recover a fair settlement on your behalf.

About Michael Pines

Michael Pines is a former insurance company attorney who specializes in car accident injury. While he was an insurance attorney, he learned from behind the scenes on how insurance companies work and how they decided to pay injured people. Now that he works against insurance companies, Michael's inside knowledge has resulted in significant benefits to his clients injured in car accidents.