Researchers at St Jude's Researcher Hospital have announced that they have found the cell that causes retinoblastoma, eye cancer. This finding disproves long held beliefs about nerve growth and development. It also suggests that it may be possible for scientists to induce fully developed neurons to multiply and cause the injured brain to repair itself.
It was previously believed that fully formed, mature nerves could not multiply like young, immature cells. The research showed that retinoblastoma can develop in fully mature nerves of the retina called horizontal interneurons.
"For the past 100 years, it's been ingrained among scientists that differentiated mature nerves are so elaborate that they can't divide, and if they try to divide, they undergo cell death," Michael Dyer, Ph.D., an associate member in the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology said. "This is the first time that anyone has shown that under certain conditions, a fully mature and differentiated nerve can undergo cell division and multiply."
This discovery may lead to a point where researchers could alter the activity of certain genes in fully developed neurons thus having them multiply temporarily and replace neurons that were lost.
[Source: PRNEwsWire]
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