Copyright 2003 Sun Media Corporation
London Free Press (Ontario, Canada)
June 30, 2003 Monday Final Edition
SECTION: LIFESTYLES; Pg. D4
LENGTH: 144 words
BYLINE: BY AP
DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Scientists know that injecting paralysed rats with human stem cells can help the animals regain some motion. Now they know why: the injection helped many of the rats' dying nerve cells to survive. That's not what the researchers had expected to discover.

In an experiment at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine rats injected with a paralysing virus to were then injected with human stem cells and regained some ability to move their feet.

The stem cells did grow some new nerve cells, but too few to explain the animals' motion, researchers say. It turns out that the stem cells travelled toward the worst-injured spots of the spinal cord, something cells won't normally do. Once in place, they churned out chemicals that helped original neurons teetering on the brink of death to survive and re-form connections between them necessary for muscle movement.

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