It seems that what prevents human nerves from regenerating like they do in some other animals is a protein with the catchy name Nogo-A.
What these researchers did was create an antibody that they call NG-101 that attaches to Nogo-A and inactivates it.
So neurologists at 13 medical centers in Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain conducted a clinical trial on 126 patients between 18 and 70 years old. All had suffered acute spinal cord injuries in their necks. 78 patients received NG-101 by direct injection into their spinal cords. The other 48 were controls whose spinal injections were a placebo. Neither the patients or the doctors knew which were which.
The trial showed that NG-101 was well tolerated and had no apparent side effects. As to effectiveness, some patients seemed to show significant improvement in hand and arm control, while others showed no improvement at all. The deciding factor there seems to have been whether or not the spinal cord was completely severed. When it was, there was no improvement. But improvement was observed in the subset where some nerve pathways still survived.
Dec 29, 2024 06:53 AM
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