I find this to be amazing to say the least, I think this will prove to be very helpful for medical science. What are your thoughts on this? Gel Heals Injured Brain and Bone Sept. 14, 2009 -- Scrambled brains and broken bones can both be healed with a new nanoparticle-infused hydrogel. Developed by scientists from Clemson University, the gel creates new blood vessels and later encourages the body's own stem cells to replace dead bone or brain cells. Twelve weeks after a devastating brain injury some test rats had recovered almost all of their original muscle and sensory functions. "The goal of this project is to encourage the neurological regeneration of damaged tissue," said Ning Zhang, a Clemson University scientist developing the hydrogel. "The functions controlled by the damaged regions will be lost permanently if not restored." Zhang used a controlled cortical impactor, basically a small, pneumatic spear with a conch-shaped tip, to strike the rat's forehead, destroying most of the brain's cortex and some of the striatum. These are areas responsible for memory, learning, sensory information and muscle movements, among other functions. For a human, that amount of brain damage would be roughly equivalent to being in a bad car crash. Fluid quickly filled area around the head wound. The Clemson scientists drained the fluid and replaced it with a liquid cocktail of three different neural growth factors, each one encased in a different biodegradable nanoparticle. This article was taken from http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/14/brain-injury-gel.html by Eric Bland, Discovery News
That's certainly interesting. Though terrible that they had to cave in the skulls of little rodents for preliminary testing.
Ya, sadly you'll be surprised at how poorly they treat lab animals and thats basically everywhere that testing occurs. Even larger animals such as cats get tested on frequently. I remember seeing one where they hooked up the cat in some machine and stuck those electrodes or whatever you call them to its head so they could display what the cat was seeing through its eyes from its brain onto a computer screen.
Well, if they are doing it to save human lives I don't honestly see a problem with it. Make up and other things like that yeah its messed up they test it on animals, but when it comes to things that help the medical industry move forward. Why not? It could end up saving thousands of human lives later on.
We know this Jshep, it's an evil that must happen. At the cat thing, now put that screen in front of the cat. And he'll be like "forget that this hurts, this is AWESOME!". Ahaha
Actually Dark, I've seen a video of that experiment in practice and although it didn't look too comfortable for the cat in the machine it was nonetheless amazing. I didn't even know our knowledge neurology was capable of actually displaying what another creatures brain is seeing through its eyes on a computer screen. There are many other things I've seen or read about that are equally amazing if not more in the terms of science, I'm surprised they don't get much publicly at all.
Wow. As a medical student, I find this interesting. Nanotechnology and medical technology is starting to increase at a rapid rate. Sooner or later, injuries thought to be fatal could be healed. Very interesting.
