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After an injury, nerves often struggle to regrow completely, leaving patients with reduced mobility and sensation. In tests on rats, Irish researchers have now demonstrated a way to improve nerve repair using proteins from the supporting network around cells.
Peripheral nerves have some capacity for regeneration after an injury, but they often need help. For major damage, sections can be surgically replaced with nerves taken from other parts of the patient’s body, but that obviously creates injuries elsewhere. Implants called nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) are often used, which, as the name suggests, help direct nerves to regenerate along specific paths.
For the new study, researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland investigated a new way to improve NGCs. The team loaded the nerve guidance conduits with a finely tuned mix of proteins from the extracellular matrix (ECM), a scaffold structure that provides support and supplies nutrients for cells in the body. The idea was to mimic the body’s usual nerve repair processes to reduce the need for drugs or stem cells.
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