Nerve Fiber Regeneration Holds Promise for Brain & Spinal Cord Injuries

In that regeneration failure of injured nerve fibers (axons) accounts for permanent functional deficits following central nervous system (CNS) injury, Zhigang He, from Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues found that by deleting a gene that suppresses natural growth factors, they promoted nerve fiber regeneration.  Specifically, the team affected the cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) in adult retinal ganglion cells of the eye, thereby promoting a robust regeneration of injured optic nerve axons.  The finding may lead to new treatments for people with brain and spinal cord injuries.  Commenting that: “our results suggest that compromised responsiveness to injury-induced growth factors in mature neurons contributes significantly to regeneration failure,” the researchers propose to “develop strategies to modulate negative signaling regulators [as] an efficient strategy of promoting axon regeneration after CNS injury.”