The news this week that the same nerve cells that control our ability to smell can apparently be used to help paralyzed people walk is thrilling stuff. The process that led up to the surgery was years in the making. Here’s an overview.
Doctors zeroed in on olfactory nerve cells in the first place because they are one of the few cells that regenerate throughout our lives. Two years ago they removed an olfactory nerve cell bulb from Derek Fidyka who had lost the ability to walk after a knife attack. They took cells from the bulb and grew them in and grew them in a petri dish.
Two weeks later surgeons at Wroclaw Medical University in Poland implanted the cells in the patient’s spinal cord, along with four strips of his ankle nerve fibers so they could fill an 8 mm gap in his severed spine, and allow a path for the cells to grow. After three months regained feeling in his lower extremities and can walk with the assistance of a frame.
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The procedure was funded by the UK’s Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation, a project set up by David Nicholls after his son had a shallow water diving accident, according to Extreme Tech. But the publication also points out that surgeons did a bit more than implanting te olfactory nerve cells and ankle nerve fibers. They also:
” …identified and excised scar tissue; untethered parts of the spinal cord that through time had adhered to the spine; patched in four strips of transplanted sural nerve (a sensory nerve extracted from the leg); and rerouted vascular supply — not to mention the extensive rehabilitative training that was also later done.”
This approach is not the only one that is being studied as a paralysis treatment. Epidural stimulation is another area of interest. It will be interesting to see how Fidyka’s progresses in his recovery and how the treatment can be applied to other patients.