Photo courtesy of J. Levine, Texas A&M University and The New York Times
We were happy to learn about the benefits of a new drug being tested by researchers that has already helped mice with certain spinal cord injuries to walk again, and now is being tested on dogs with a common spinal cord injury caused by a ruptured disk. According to this article on the Times blog, "Well",
"The new drug works by blocking a protein that becomes abnormally high after a spinal cord injury." Injured mice have shown "a remarkable recovery" if treated within a few hours of the injury.
We didn't realize that short-legged, long-torso breeds like dachshunds were particularly prone to spontaneously ruptured disks -in fact, one in five dachshunds will suffer this type of injury, according to the article.
Texas A&M University plans to test this drug over a two year period, and if the treatment proves effective, scientists will move to human trials in a few years. We'll be interested to see the results of this study...but did you notice? As usual, we dogs are helping humans in yet another endeavor-we got your back, folks!
