Fish ‘holds key to curing paralysis’

THE nervous systems of tropical zebrafish could hold the key to a cure for people with paralysing spinal cord injuries.

Researchers at Edinburgh University say they have uncovered a ‘vital mechanism’ in the spines of the tiny exotic fish that helps nerve connections to regrow.

Zebrafish can regain full movement within four weeks of injury to their spinal cord.

For humans and other mammals, damage to the spinal cord results in irreversible paralysis.

However, a team at Edinburgh’s Centre for Neuroregeneration say that they have pinpointed ‘key molecules’ that prompt a zebrafish’s damaged nerve fibres to regenerate themselves.

They found that wound-healing cells called fibroblasts move into the site of damage. The fibroblasts produce a molecule called collagen 12, which changes the structure of the ‘support matrix’ surrounding nerve fibres, enabling them to grow back across the wound site.

The study – published in scientific journal Nature Communications – could pave the way for doctors to restore connections between the brain and muscles of the body lost after human spinal cord injury.

Professor Thomas Becker, director of the Centre for Neuroregeneration at Edinburgh, said: ‘In people and other mammals, the matrix in the injury site blocks nerves from growing back after an injury.

‘We have now pinpointed the signals that remove this roadblock in zebrafish.’