Research Projects

Latest projects awarded in the last grant round (September 2007)

Scientists believe a key to restoring function for many spinally-injured people may be to tap the potential of remaining uninjured nerve fibres.

Because of this our latest grant round posed the question “How do we optimise the function of spared tissue?”

Olfactory ensheathing cell (1) (OEC) transplants and the use of chondroitinase (2) are two leading experimental therapies shown to improve functional outcome in experimental models of SCI. The group led by Dr John Riddell and Professor Sue Barnett at the University of Glasgow will combine OEC transplants with chondroitinase and investigate the changes that this induces in both damaged and undamaged nerves. They will then establish whether these changes contribute to useful motor and sensory recovery.

At the University of Alberta, Canada, Dr Karim Fouad and Professor Wolfgang Tetzlaff will lead a group investigating compensatory rearrangements found in the spinal cord and brain after SCI. Research has shown that a number of growth factors will stimulate this plasticity (3). Equally, repetitive task training appears to enhance plasticity too. This project will combine exercise training with the application of growth factors to determine the potential of both approaches.

Drs Lyn Jakeman and Michele Basso at Ohio State University, USA, recognised that spinal cord regeneration strategies were typically focused at the site of injury, while rehabilitation strategies are designed to create plasticity of the remaining nerve fibres. Neither approach in isolation has been sufficient so far in producing functional improvements of great clinical significance. This, they concluded, was due to the reduced capacity of the mature, adult spinal cord to respond to rehabilitation –driven sensory and motor (4) signals. Their project proposes administering chondroitinase to create conditions similar to those found in the developing nervous system, and combining this with an exercise programme to drive the resulting plasticity in the most appropriate way.

We hope that the results of these complementary studies will be of great benefit and could be used in conjunction to develop therapies to beat paralysis.

1. Olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC): a type of adult stem cell from the nose that promotes nerve regeneration when transplanted into SCI
   
2. Chondroitinase: an enzyme that breaks down the barrier of scar tissue
3. Plasticity: the ability of the brain and/or certain parts of the nervous system to change, for example by making new connections, in response to new conditions such as an injury.
4. Motor: conveying information to the muscles from the central nervous system