I mean even if you can hold the two ends together, how can you reconnect each fiber properly so you dont end up feeling your thumb like if it was your pinky or shit like that?
>>16870225Your brain adjusts. If lucky.
>>16870225Just tie a knot
>>16870225You can't. Motor neurons are longest neurons in your body, located in spinal cord and responsible for as the name implies movement. So your brain can command your legs to move. Its one longass cell, one longass cable. Once its severed you are fucked and there is no way to reattach it as it is on a cellular level. You can't weld spinal cord together in such amounts.Imagine having to weld together millions of microscopic cables
>>16870455>You can't weld spinal cord togetherCertainly could with fusogenic particles. Problem is rather that the severed nerve ending likely deteriorates pretty quickly. And reading the wiring diagram correctly would be one hell of an exercise. Rest is microsurgery so to speak, let a robot do it, a human hand would shake too much.
>>16870479>And reading the wiring diagram correctly would be one hell of an exerciseThe good thing about our brain is that it can actually adapt so wiring wrong cables together will in the long run still fix itselfMicrosurgery however and cells deteriorating is the main issue here
>>16870485>>16870455How come people have gotten hand transplants after years of being disabled and can still move their new hands and have some sensation in them?
>>16870497Because anon is wrong. Severed nerve cells WILL attempt to reconnect. The difficulty is that regeneration is hardly perfect and sometimes nerves "cross a wire" and innervate inappropriately. Additionally they will almost never heal to their pre-injury strength as some number of cells in the nerve bundle will fail to heal, and strength of contraction is proportional to the number of muscle bundles recruited by the signal. Fewer nerves = fewer motor units = weaker contraction. >>16870225Surgeons suture the epineurium together.
>>16870522>they will almost never heal to their pre-injury strength as some number of cells in the nerve bundle will fail to heal, and strength of contraction is proportional to the number of muscle bundles recruited by the signal. Fewer nerves = fewer motor units = weaker contraction.What about sensory nerves?
>>16870225>how can you tell you pinky is not your thumbBecause they are innervated by different nerves dumbass.A more proximal injury, like a brachial plexus injury, can certainly lead to issues with sensation and coordination, though the brain is very good at remapping over time if given sufficient challenge, which is why physical therapy is so important in recovering from these kinds of injuries.
>>16870524Same problem, people often lose some sensation even with timely expert surgical care. Still, it's better than nothing. An important thing to stress with every patient after a major injury is that the expectation is they will never return to pre-injury state. Medicine is not there yet and is unlikely to get there, we cannot do something that the mechanisms of nature would not allow.
>>16870525You know what i mean, stop trying to be a smartass
>>16870527Oh, then see the second half of mh answer
>>16870522the body is mindboggling
>>16870526how promising is thhis research?>Here’s the translation of the provided content into English:---New Research on Nerve Injury Repair Is Here!Hey everyone, today I want to share a super impressive research finding! Schwann cells play a crucial role in repairing long-gap peripheral nerve injury (PNI)—their migration, proliferation, and secretion behaviors are really important. And bioactive ceramics can release active ions to regulate these "repair" cells.Researchers Wang Lin and Wang Zheng from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, along with Chang Jiang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered that the bioceramic akermanite (AT) can enhance the proliferation, migration, and secretion of Schwann cells by activating the PI3K/AKT and MAPK/ERK signaling pathways. When combined with silk sericin (SS), the effect is even better—they synergistically enhance the pro-regenerative behavior of Schwann cells and accelerate axon elongation.The AT-SS composite conduit they developed showed excellent performance in restoring the structure and function of a 13mm transected PNI. Compared with commercially available ePTFE conduits, it promotes axon and myelin regeneration, improves nerve conduction, and alleviates gastrocnemius muscle atrophy. Moreover, its functional recovery effect is comparable to that of autografts!The related findings were published in the paper titled "Bioactive Silk Sericin/Bioceramic Nerve Guidance Conduit for Effective Repair of Long-Gap Transected Peripheral Nerve Injury through Regulating Schwann Cells," in the journal Advanced Science (Impact Factor: 14.1), with a publication date of July 2025.
>>16870546Idk man I'm not a physiatrist or neurosurgeon. Warrants further research, like all new proposed biomedical devices.
>>16870225I think you would have to program astrocytes to connect that neurons back and myelinate them... But I've seen some news that now there's stem cell therapy that makes paralyzed with spinal injury walk again.
