Quote from: tss on March 01, 2015, 06:37:37 AM

Quote from: tee-rex on February 28, 2015, 11:51:32 AM

Quote from: tss on February 28, 2015, 05:04:29 AM

Quote from: TotalShift on February 27, 2015, 08:18:56 PM

This is interesting. How do they join two spinal cords?

good question. we can't repair spinal cord damage yet but in two years they claim to fully transplant a head and reconnect all those nerves? i think not. also.. where do you get a donor body.?

The doctor in his article (which is included in PubMed, not in the OP) says that if the spinal cord is severed by a sharp cut, then the chances are pretty good for recovering at least partial motility.

Below is the relevant part from that paper:

Quote

The key to SCF is a sharp severance of the cords themselves, with its attendant minimal damage to both the axons in the white matter and the neurons in the gray laminae. This is a key point: A typical force generated by creating a sharp transection is less than 10 N versus approximately 26000 N experienced during spinal cord injury

A specially fashioned diamond microtomic snare-blade is one option (unpublished); a nanoknife made of a thin layer of silicon nitride with a nanometer sharp cutting edge is another alternative. Notably, the mechanical strength of silicon is superior to that of steel

He also notes that other studies have revealed that rats whose spinal cords were sharply transected recovered ambulation (ability to move).

the rat's spine was cut sharply and rejoined in the same section. same rat, same spine.

so then you say the key to spinal cord repair is 2 sharp cuts above and below the injury then a joining of the sections? why hasn't this been tried before?

I'm absolutely sure that this has already been tried many times (with mixed success). After an injury, the patient isn't usually operated right on the spot (I mean spinal cord surgeries), and with every hour passed his chances for successful recovery are diminishing. Besides that, I think the majority of spinal cord injuries are not cut-throughs but fractures and tears, under which a larger section of the cord is damaged.