The article mentions a protective seal over the nerves. I wonder if this could be used in some way with MS patients?
Or burn victims?
"His team has even fused severed guinea pig spinal cords using PEG, although the dogs in the study had spinal disc ruptures that crushed, but did not sever, their spinal cords.
"Although exactly how PEG works remains unclear, Borgens said it appears to act as a sort of "molecular Band-Aid" that forms a temporary seal over breaches in nerve cells in the spinal cord, aiding their healing process.
"This stuff is kind of like a radiator stop-leak for the nervous system. The polymer spreads out and forms a seal over the damaged areas in the nerve cells and allows the membrane below to reconstruct itself," said Borgens, director of Purdue's Center for Paralysis Research.
"He said PEG also appears to prevent secondary tissue death that often causes more damage than the original injury. Borgens said the agent only covers damaged cells and tissues when injected into the blood stream."
This story deals with mechanical injury to the spinal cord. I'm pretty sure what is meant by secondary tissue death is the formation of scar tissue. I believe the PEG, like the steroids, is decreasing or inhibiting the natural inflammatory response. Maybe the PEG just forms a mechanical barrier somehow around the lesion.
When the spinal cord is cut the normal inflammatory response initiates a process that eventually grows scar tissue at the site of the cut. The nerves try to regrow to repair themselves, but they're stymied by the scar tissue.
MS fits the auto-immune model of disease in which the bodies immune system is tricked into attacking the myelin sheaths surrounding the axons of nerve cells. I don't think PEG would help MS patients, but if it is that safe, somebody will probably try. The story wasn't that specific in the technique used to give the drug other than injected into the bloodstream. That usually means intravenous, but maybe they somehow injected it into an artery just before the lesion. I read the abstract of one article in which they said the PEG was administered subcutaneously. I went to PubMed and entered PEG AND spinal cord trauma. Here's a link. That abstract links to the whole article. Also check related links.