Wiring
replacement organs into the body may be as easy as discharging a
biological battery, new experiments with tadpoles suggest.
Scientists
cut the eye from one tadpole’s head and transplanted it to another’s
flank. Tweaking electrical charges in the recipient tadpole’s body cells
stimulated nerve growth from the transplanted eye, researchers report December 1 in Neurotherapeutics.
The
study could be an early step toward getting replacement eyes, ears and
other organs to wire into a body properly, and it could possibly lead to
a method for spinal cord repair.
It’s
a feat scientists didn’t think was possible, says Silvia Chifflet, a
cell biologist and physiologist at the Universidad de la República
medical school in Montevideo, Uruguay. “We used to think that the
nervous system, once severed, would not regenerate,” says Chifflet, who
was not involved with the work.
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