Tag: UCLA

Mark Pollock, Simone George tell their remarkable life story in new TED talk

If you think listening to a paralyzed, blind man discuss his life does not sound uplifting, meet Mark Pollock. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy, whose TED talk about body language has nearly 15 million views, describes the new talk by Pollock and his partner, human rights lawyer, Simone George, as “the most powerful, moving talk I have ever seen at TED.”

In UCLA study, magnetic stimulation of lower spine eliminates need for catheter for up to 4 weeks

More than 80 percent of the 250,000 Americans living with a spinal cord injury lose the ability to urinate voluntarily after their injury. According to a 2012 study, the desire to regain bladder control outranks even their wish to walk again.

In a study of five men whose injuries occurred five to 13 years ago, UCLA neuroscientists stimulated the lower spinal cord through the skin with a magnetic device placed at the lumbar spine.

A new study suggests that a nonsurgical, noninvasive spinal stimulation procedure can help people with severe spinal cord injury (SCI) regain use of their hands and fingers.

Developed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA; USA) and NeuroRecovery Technologies (Dana Point, CA, USA) transcutaneous enabling motor control (TEMC) involves neuromodulation of nonfunctional sensory-motor networks by placing electrodes on the skin that stimulate the cervical spinal cord using an electrical current delivered at varying frequencies and intensities to specific locations. The goal of TEMC is to restore physiological states that enable and amplify voluntary muscle control.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Mayo Clinic researchers used electrical stimulation on the spinal cord and intense physical therapy to help a man intentionally move his paralyzed legs, stand and make steplike motions for the first time in three years.

The case, the result of collaboration with UCLA researchers, appears today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers say these results offer further evidence that a combination of this technology and rehabilitation may help patients with spinal cord injuries regain control over previously paralyzed movements, such as steplike actions, balance control and standing.

A UCLA professor is working to develop a treatment for spinal cord injuries, which are currently incurable.

Stephanie Seidlits, assistant professor of bioengineering, will attempt to use biomaterial made out of hyaluronic acid – a long chain of sugars in the body – to create a treatment that can be injected into spinal cords. Seidlits will conduct the research with students using a $500,000 grant she won March 1.

The prestigious CAREER award, granted by the National Science Foundation, aims to support scholars who effectively integrate research with education.

A UCLA professor is helping paralyzed individuals regain use of their limbs through electric stimulation of the spinal cord.

In 2015, Reggie Edgerton, the director of the Neuromuscular Research Laboratory at UCLA, developed a robotic exoskeleton that helped a paralyzed man walk. Though the man is still paralyzed and cannot control the exoskeleton’s movement, Edgerton’s lab plans to do more research to make that happen.

Spinal Cord Injury Fertility Management – The Men’s Clinic at UCLA

Spinal Cord Injury Fertility

A spinal cord injury is a devastating event in a man’s life. Many spinal cord injured men are told that they are infertile because of their injury. This is usually not true. Men are often unable to ejaculate after spinal cord injury but their sperm production is usually normal. The physicians at The Men’s Clinic at UCLA can determine the best way to retrieve sperm from a spinal cord injured man and use the sperm for intra-uterine insemination (IUI) or invitro fertilization (IVF).

UCLA scientists test electrical stimulation that bypasses injury; technique boosts patient’s finger control, grip strength up to 300 percent

A spinal stimulator being tested by doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center is showing promise in restoring hand strength and movement to a California man who broke his neck in a dirt bike accident five years ago.

In June, Brian Gomez, now 28, became one of the first people in the world to undergo surgery for the experimental device.

At last week’s Science Before Supper, a lecture series about science for non-scientists at the Falmouth Public Library, Jennifer Morgan from Marine Biological Laboratory, spoke about the sea lamprey and what it can reveal about the human nervous system and the potential for regeneration after spinal cord injury.

The lamprey, an eel-like parasitic fish, has a true spinal cord, but, unlike people, when its cord is injured, the lamprey recovers.

UCLA research finds that nerve cells regrow better when glial scarring is left intact

Neuroscientists have long believed that scar tissue formed by glial cells — the cells that surround neurons in the central nervous system — impedes damaged nerve cells from regrowing after a brain or spinal cord injury. So it’s no wonder that researchers have assumed that if they could find a way to remove or counteract that scar tissue, injured neurons might spontaneously repair themselves.

A new study by UCLA scientists now shows that this assumption might have been impeding research on repairing spinal cord injuries.