Running stimulates interneuronal communication in injured rats. Another report from the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience
By: Helen R. Pilcher, Nature (translation: Dikla Oren)
Exercise accelerates the recovery of rats, injured in the spinal cord, a new study suggests. Regular running encourages the release of chemicals that help damaged nerves communicate. The findings add to the evidence that training may accelerate rehabilitation in humans who have suffered spinal cord injuries. Every year in the USA alone about 15,000 people are injured in the spine. Physiotherapy improves muscle strength and relieves pain, but most are left with some degree of paralysis.
Like some humans, a certain percentage of rats with a partially severed spinal cord are able to learn to walk again. By giving them a treadmill, their recovery time is cut in half to one month, said Fernando Gomez-Finije of the University of California, Los Angeles, at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in New Orleans. The rats naturally turn to training and run up to four kilometers at night. Patients should be helped to exercise on their feet, agrees spinal cord researcher Oswald Steward of the University of California, Irvine. Such evidence helps rehabilitation specialists sharpen their methods, he explains: "For years, we taught patients with spinal cord injuries to sit."
Injured rats that run have three times more BDNF—a molecule that helps cells survive—than inactive rodents, Gómez-Finija reports. They also have higher levels of synapsin 1, a protein that helps neurons release chemical messengers. Drugs that mimic this effect could help cure some patients who suffer from paralysis, suggests neurophysiologist Lauren Mendel of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. "We are beginning to understand the molecular mechanisms that link exercise to spinal cord repair," he says.
