Nerve Regeneration Essay Research Paper Topic New

Nerve Regeneration Essay, Research Paper

Topic: New ways to aid in nerve regeneration. General Purpose: To inform

Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about news techniques and mechanisms

that aid in nerve regeneration. Central Idea Statement: The new techniques for

nerve regeneration involving magnetic, electrical, and chemical mechanisms look

very promising. INTRODUCTION I. The site is rather common: someone in a wheel

chair unable to use their lower body, or worse, unable to function from their

neck down because of an accident. You may even know one of these people. They

all have one thing in common: spinal nerve injury. To the majority of us, one of

the more famous and recent cases involving spinal trauma is that of Christopher

Reeve, known to most of us as Superman. Reeve was riding his horse when he fell

off, landed on the back of his head and twisted his neck. His spine was damaged

near the second cervical vertebrae; that being two vertebrae away from the base

of the skull. He states that after his accident he saw a handbook written in

1990 that "didn’t even mention anyone higher than [the fourth cervical

vertebrae] because 70 percent of them didn’t live longer than five days. I am

very lucky my injury happened at a time when treatment and surgery had

improved." Dr. Cotman from UCI, who worked with Reeve says that Reeve

remains optimistic that a cure is only a few million dollars away. II. Prior to

the end of the Second World War, if a person survived a severe spinal cord

injury, the injury still usually resulted in their early death. This was because

of complications that accompanied the injury, such as infections to the kidneys

and lungs. Though the development of new antibiotics has greatly improved life

expectancy, until recently medical science had not been able to restore nerve

function. III. According to researchers at the University of Alabama using data

from the regional SCI Centers, there are 7,800 traumatic spinal cord injuries

each year in the US. Yet these numbers do not represent accurate figures since

4,860 per year, die before reaching the hospital. Current estimates are that

250,000-400,000 individuals live with spinal cord injury or dysfunction;

forty-four percent of these occur in motor vehicle accidents. More than half of

these injuries occur to individuals who are single, and more than 80% of these

individuals are male. IV. Within the last five years, a great many things have

been happening in the area of neurological research. Research and treatment

involving spinal and nerve injury has progressed considerably. In this speech I

will inform you on the new and promising techniques that are currently

undergoing testing for human treatment, in terminology that we will be able to

understand. BODY I. The nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord, and

all branching nerves. There are two parts: the central nervous system, or CNS,

and the peripheral nervous system, or PNS. The CNS, consists of the brain and

spinal cord, while the PNS involves all the nerves that branch off from the

spinal cord to the extremities. A. When the spine is crushed or bent in an

extreme accident, the spinal cord inside is severely bruised and compressed,

causing localized injury and death to many of the nerve cells and their fibers.

Some of injured nerves fibers survive intact, but lose their electrical

insulation, or myelin, over the very short distance of the injury zone. Nerve

impulses are blocked at this point. 1. The myelin is the part of the nerve that

actually transfers the electrical signal that enables your muscles to move when

you want them to move. B. Nerves regenerate at the rate of about a cm a month.

Keep in mind that not all nerves can regenerate (the spinal cord is a prime

example) and if a nerve is too damaged or is severed it cannot come back C.

Peripheral nerves will regenerate to a certain extent on their own, but they

don’t regenerate over very long distances. D. The big problem with treating

spinal injuries is the fact that mature nerve tissue does not spontaneously

regenerate. II. The three basic ways to treat nerve damage are: first, produce

regeneration of the remaining segment of a nerve fiber, or make new connections

on the other side of the injury. Second, prevent or rescue the damaged nerve

fiber from proceeding on to separation, or perhaps even functionally reunite the

two segments, so that both portions of the fiber survive. Or third, facilitate

nerve impulse traffic to cross the region of injury in intact fibers where they

have lost their electrical insulation. III. The techniques that are being used

to do this involve magnetic, electrical, chemical, or a combination of these to

stimulate the damaged nerve. A. At present surgeons take a nerve from a less

important part of the body and transfer it to the site of the injury. Generally

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