Nerves, damaged, regeneration

Nerve cells are known to elaborate proteins that guide early development of the nervous system and in later life play a role in cell repair and regeneration. A purine that crosses the blood-brain barrier has shown activity similar to those endogenous factors in vitro as in in vivo models of nerve damage. Conjugate addition of adenine to ethyl acrylate in the presence of base leads to the ester (106). Reaction of that product with sodium... 

Neural tissue repair in order to treat nerve damage or neuropathy arising from a spinal cord or cerebral injury essentially requires the intervention of tissue engineering because axons are unable to regenerate on their own. Hence, recent advances in neural tissue engineering provide suitable and promising substitutes... 

BLIND AND PAINFUL EYE Retrobulbar injection of either absolute or 95% ethanol may provide relief from chronic pain associated with a blind and painful eye. Retrobulbar chlorpro-mazine also has been used. This treatment is preceded by administration of local anesthesia. Local infiltration of the ciliary nerves provides symptomatic relief from pain, but other nerve fibers may be damaged, causing paralysis of the extraocular muscles, including those in the eyelids, or neuroparalytic keratitis. The sensory fibers of the ciliary nerves may regenerate, and repeated injections sometimes are needed. 

The molecular and cellular events during Wallerian degeneration in the peripheral nervous system transform the damaged nerve into an environment that supports regeneration 518 Both Schwann cells and basal lamina are required for axonal regeneration... 

Adhesion molecules such as LI, neural cell adhesion molecule (N-CAM) and N-cadherin promote axonal regeneration by homophilic interactions between axons and Schwann cell surfaces (see Ch. 7). The expression of p75 (low affinity NGF receptor, Ch. 27) is also increased at the Schwann cell surface after injury. Extracellular matrix molecules, such as tenascin and proteoglycans, increase the regenerative potential of damaged peripheral nerves by binding to integrins on the axonal surface. 

Fawcett, J. W., Rosser, A. E. and Dunnett, S. B. Peripheral nerve regeneration. In Brain Damage, Brain Repair. New York Oxford University Press, 2001. 

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