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Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

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Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#81

Post by waste_monk »

p1esk wrote: post #13
kmeisthax wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I'll put this into terms that a sysadmin can understand: imagine if all the Ethernet or fiber going to a datacenter rack was bundled up, and I cut that bundle up. Now you have to splice them back together so that every port is still connected to the same port it was before I cut the cables. Oh, and also, the cables are microscopic, incredibly fragile, and we don't know how to actually repair them. We sort of just…

The fact that they grow back in place makes the whole thing 1000x easier, no?

Imagine that the bundle of cables were all completely identical and unlabelled in any way. Even if you could surgically reconnect the nerves perfectly, you don't know which nerves should be connected to what on the other side.

As another commenter posted, there are 31 "bundles" of nerves carrying a total of a few hundred thousand individual fibres. The odds of re-connecting a human spine correctly are simply incredibly small.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#82

Post by DoreenMichele »

Julesman wrote: post #63

Knowing someone with a spinal injury I can tell you that these constant innovations that won't reach the market for 20 years are kind of continuously devastating.

There is too much focus on the "cool" factor and not enough on quality of life and results for impacted patients. I don't know how to fix it.

I've mostly given up on commenting on this on HN. I have an incurable condition and it makes zero difference that these practices directly negatively impact my life and scare the hell out of me, such observations get down voted and attacked and treated like crazy talk.

I'm sorry for what your social contact is going through.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#83

Post by oneshtein »

tsavo wrote: post #47
knome wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason to be glib. If patients' brains can reconfigure following trauma such as strokes [1] or having our entire visual field flipped [2] there's no reason to assume one couldn't reroute around having nerves hooked up differently. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK326735/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable...

Can speak from personal experience. Traumatic incident which severed the nerves to my leg in multiple places. Nerves eventually regrew and reconnected within the leg, and then again where they were severed in the foot. Motor and senory nerves reacted differently. When motor nerves reconnected, I still couldn't contract the muscles and went through a series of steps to relearn how to use the limb. First I was trying t…

Did you use any medication to help nerves regrow, like Lion's Mane or something like that? We have plenty of injured soldier here, in Ukraine. I'm looking for something cheap and effective to help them recover from injuries.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#84

Post by maximegarcia »

14 wrote: post #60
busterarm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neuropathy affects a lot of people. Diabetics, for example. This could improve a lot of lives.

I don’t think it will ultimately help a diabetic. More worrisome then loss of feeling is loss of circulation. With High blood sugars you’re essentially get sugar crystals that build up on the capillary walls, which prevent blood circulation. Even if you cure Neuropathy will still have the issue of poor circulation.

But with neuropathy, which causes loss of feeling, pain… in the feet for example, you can ignore damage that combined with a loss of blood circulation capabilities can make things deteriorate very badly (necrosis, amputation).

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#85

Post by MetalGuru »

Julesman wrote: post #63

Knowing someone with a spinal injury I can tell you that these constant innovations that won't reach the market for 20 years are kind of continuously devastating.

20 years is infinitely better than never. There are a lot of life-altering diseases whose future outlook is much bleaker (eg. little funding or research interest). But yea, having to wait so long definitely sucks for those currently suffering.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#86

Post by adrianN »

jmprspret wrote: post #80
rbanffy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a lab-grown vertebral column where nerve signals travel at electric current speeds.

Don't nerve signals already travel at electric current speeds?

No they are much slower, on the order of a few dozen meters per second.

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#87

Post by lifeisstillgood »

gumby wrote: post #75
rbanffy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a pair of bridges and a conductor to make the nerve signals travel at electric current speeds and I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes.

> I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes. This is almost probably not what you want. Your nerves respond pretty quickly already and you can do things faster than you can think about them (e.g. catching a ball) so there's more to the computation than the "CPU". I have read that the myelin sheath on your nerves is thicker at birth then as an adult. The theory (not mine!) is that as it thins the capacitance goes do…

So if as a child I learn to send a signal to my hand to move out to catch the ball, the signal takes X microseconds to travel from brain down my arm to my and and "clasp"

But as an adult / teen my arm is now a foot or more longer. So the signal would take x+y microseconds to get to my hand - but if the resistance of the nerves reduces it's signal is faster and back to x microseconds

That's brilliant

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#88

Post by soco »

skykooler wrote: post #72
rbanffy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a pair of bridges and a conductor to make the nerve signals travel at electric current speeds and I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes.

I wonder if you could multiplex the signals from a bunch of nerves and send them over an Ethernet link.

Next level: link together a group of humans. I can't really imagine the implications of that, but I think of Vernor Vinge's "A fire upon the deep" and the group minds of the wolves there...

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#89

Post by jddj »

dghughes wrote: post #71
codeisawesome wrote: post #45

Would it be possible in a sci-fi near-future to transplant a new, lab-grown vertebral column, using something like this?

I think the spine is far more complex than the average person is aware of. From what I have read it has some basic reaction/thinking capabilities which may be beyond what can be made by humans.

Mine needs to learn to just be quiet and follow instructions

Re: Engineered material can reconnect severed nerves

#90

Post by theshackleford »

Julesman wrote: post #63

Knowing someone with a spinal injury I can tell you that these constant innovations that won't reach the market for 20 years are kind of continuously devastating.

I have a spinal cord injury (well rather, an incomplete spinal cord injury) and knowing that every day will be like the last until I die has taken a toll that has at times almost led me to bring that event forward in time. Look after your nerves my peeps.
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