Reactive astrocytes contribute to glial scarring by rapid proliferation and up-regulation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression and production of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs). CSPGs play a crucial role in formation of the glial scar, which takes over the lesion site following spinal cord injury (SCI). This process corresponds to the inflammatory response of macrophag...

Spinal cord injuries devastate the lives of those affected. Normally, acute injury leads to chronic injury in the spinal cord, although this has a variable impact on normal sensory and motor functions. Currently the only drug used to treat acute spinal cord injury is methyl-prednisolone, administered in order to prevent secondary inflammatory neural damage. Thus, it is time that alternative and...

Following a CNS lesion many glial cell types proliferate and/or migrate to the lesion site, forming the glial scar. The majority of these cells express chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans (CS-PGs), previously shown to inhibit axonal growth. In this study, in an attempt to diminish glial scar formation and improve axonal regeneration, proliferating cells were eliminated from the lesion site. Adul...

In 1999 we reported an important demonstration of a working brain-machine interface (BMI), in which recordings from multiple, single neurons in sensorimotor cortical areas of rats were used to directly control a robotic arm to retrieve a water reward. Subsequent studies in monkeys, using a similar approach, demonstrated that primates can use a BMI device to control a cursor on a computer screen...

Intermediate (8--9 nm) filaments of human central nervous system astrocytes were isolated from the gliosed white matter of cases of adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). This hereditary lipidosis is characterized pathologically by demyelination, loss of axons, and replacement of the white matter of the caudal cerebrum by a glial scar. Glial filaments were composed largely of a single protein component wi...