Researchers got paralyzed rats to walk again using a flexible spinal implant that shows promise in human medicine.
Surface implants are limited in that they cannot be implanted directly into an organ or the spinal cord, and often are rejected by the body or cause dangerous inflammation or scar tissue as a result of friction, école polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne reported. These new implants mimic the properties of living tissue and can deliver impulses and pharmacological substances with a greatly reduced risk of rejection.
The implant, dubbed e-Dura, is placed beneath the dura mater, directly onto the spinal cord. When implanted into rats the innovation did not lead to rejection, even after a period of two months. It combines electrical and chemical stimulation to the spine, and proved to get rats walking again after only a few weeks of training.
"Our e-Dura implant can remain for a long period of time on the spinal cord or the cortex, precisely because it has the same mechanical properties as the dura mater itself. This opens up new therapeutic possibilities for patients suffering from neurological trauma or disorders, particularly individuals who have become paralyzed following spinal cord injury," said Stéphanie Lacour, co-author of the paper, and holder of EPFL's Bertarelli Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology.
The implant is made of a silicon substrate and platinum microbeads and is covered with flexible cracked gold electric conducting tracks. It also contains a fluidic microchannel enables the delivery of pharmacological substances such as neurotransmitters.
"It's the first neuronal surface implant designed from the start for long-term application. In order to build it, we had to combine expertise from a considerable number of areas," said Grégoire Courtine, co-author and holder of EPFL's IRP Chair in Spinal Cord Repair. "These include materials science, electronics, neuroscience, medicine, and algorithm programming. I don't think there are many places in the world where one finds the level of interdisciplinary cooperation that exists in our Center for Neuroprosthetics."
The research will be published in the January edition of Science Magazine.
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