45
This impetus* intensified interest in a finding reported in 1980,
which provided the first glimmer of hope that a damaged spinal cord
might be repaired. Albert Aguayo, now at McGill University in Montreal,
Canada, cut rats, spinal cords and showed that they were able to sprout
into pieces of tissue grafted from the animals' sciatic nerves.
50 seeded the idea that the lack of regrowth following a spinal injury is
partly caused by inhibitory molecules in the spinal cord itself.
This