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Sci. STKE, 13 July 2004
Vol. 2004, Issue 241, p. tw257
[DOI: 10.1126/stke.2412004tw257]

EDITORS' CHOICE

NEUROSCIENCE Fixing Spinal Injury in Fish

The tragedies of spinal cord damage in humans would be much alleviated if spinal cord neurons could regenerate, but human neurons show great reluctance to do so. Restricting factors seem to be both intrinsic to the damaged neuron and extrinsic to the surrounding central nervous system (CNS) tissue. In zebrafish, the CNS seems to have less of the general repressive nature, but Mauthner neurons still cannot regenerate reliably. Bhatt et al. now find that application of cAMP (adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate) to the cell body of the Mauthner neuron in zebrafish induced its regeneration and restored Mauthner neuron-dependent behavioral responses.

D. H. Bhatt, S. J. Otto, B. Depoister, J. R. Fetcho, Cyclic AMP-induced repair of zebrafish spinal circuits. Science 305, 254-258 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]

Citation: Fixing Spinal Injury in Fish. Sci. STKE 2004, tw257 (2004).

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