[00:00.00]Researchers recently reported new evidence from a study of a medical device placed inside the body, a spine-stimulating implant.
[00:13.22]Three people with a muscle-destroying disease got a little stronger after using the implant.
[00:22.21]They were able to stand and walk more easily because of electrical stimulation to their spinal cord.
[00:33.73]Marco Capogrosso is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburg, or Pitt, who led the research.
[00:45.46]"These people were definitely not expecting an improvement," he said.
[00:52.61]Capogrosso said, "They were getting better and better," over the study that lasted one month.
[01:01.00]The implant was able to return some muscle function, at least temporarily.
[01:08.67]The implant was already being tested to treat paralysis in other patients.
[01:16.51]This new evidence suggests it might also aid diseases of the nervous system like spinal muscle atrophy, or SMA.
[01:30.15]SMA is a genetic disease that slowly destroys motor neurons, nerve cells in the spinal cord that control muscles.
[01:43.01]That leads muscles to waste away, especially in the legs, hips, and shoulders and sometimes those involved with breathing and swallowing. There is no cure.
[01:59.79]A gene therapy can save the lives of very young children with a severe form of the disease, and there are some medicines to slow the disease in older patients.
[02:14.49]Stimulating the spinal cord with low levels of electricity has long been used to treat chronic, or long-term, pain.
[02:26.09]Capogrosso's team also has tested it to help people paralyzed by strokes or spinal cord injury move their arms and legs with assistance.
[02:39.76]The system sends electrical signals to nerves that have stopped reacting.
[02:46.17]This has the effect of activating the muscles.
[02:50.99]Capogrosso wondered if that same technology might help patients with SMA by stimulating sensory nerves to signal damaged muscle cells causing them to move.
[03:06.96]The researchers at the University of Pittsburgh published their study in Nature Medicine.
[03:16.26]They implanted electrodes over the lower spinal cord of the three adults with SMA.
[03:23.90]Using the device did not return normal movement but with a few hours of spinal stimulation a week, all soon experienced improvements in muscle strength and function, the researchers wrote.
[03:42.95]Fifty-seven-year-old Doug McCullough took part in the study.
[03:48.53]"With a progressive disease you never get any better," he said, adding,
[03:55.56]"So having any improvement is just a really surreal and very exciting benefit."
[04:05.07]All three subjects increased how far they could walk in six minutes by the study's end.
[04:13.96]Capogrosso said they could walk farther because they got less tired and "even a person this many years into the disease can improve."
[04:26.12]Researchers found the improvements did not disappear as soon as the stimulator was turned off.
[04:35.34]But they did decrease a few months after the study ended.
[04:41.31]Neuroscientist Susan Harkema led similar studies of stimulation for spinal cord injuries while at the University of Louisville.
[04:53.71]She warned that the new study is small and did not last very long but said it was an important test of the device.
[05:05.11]She said it should be tested next with other muscle-degenerating diseases.
_____________________________________________
Words in This Story
stimulate - v. to make (something) more active
implant - n. something placed in a person's body through a medical operation
function -n. the work that something is designed to do
paralysis -n. the condition of not being able to move muscles, especially those in the arms and legs
neuron - n. a cell that carries messages between the brain and other parts of the body and that is the basic unit of the nervous system
stroke -n. a serious medical condition caused by a loss of oxygen or blood flow to the brain when a blood vessel is blocked or bursts
surreal - adj. very strange or unusual; having the quality of a dream
degenerate - v. to change to a worse state or condition; to become worse, weaker, or less useful
/1 
