Neuroscience Breakthrough , Could Lead to New Treatments for , Spinal Cord Injuries.<br />'Newsweek' reports that neuroscientists have <br />discovered that the human spinal cord is capable of <br />making its own memories independent of the brain.<br />The discovery, which challenges previous <br />ideas about neural circuits outside of the brain, <br />could represent a breakthrough for people <br />recovering from spinal cord injuries. .<br />Learning and memory is<br />often attributed as functions <br />of the brain exclusively, Aya Takeoka, principal investigator at Japan's <br />RIKEN Center for Brain Science, via 'Newsweek'.<br />Although scientists knew for <br />more than a century that the <br />spinal cord could learn and adapt <br />movements in the absence of brain <br />input, we did not know how <br />the spinal cord learns and <br />memorize what is has learned, Aya Takeoka, principal investigator at Japan's <br />RIKEN Center for Brain Science, via 'Newsweek'.<br />Gaining insights into the underlying <br />mechanism is essential if we want <br />to understand the foundations <br />of movement automaticity in <br />healthy people and use this <br />knowledge to improve recovery <br />after spinal cord injury, Aya Takeoka, principal investigator at Japan's <br />RIKEN Center for Brain Science, via 'Newsweek'.<br />The team of neuroscientists looked to demonstrate <br />how spinal cord cells can adapt to sensory inputs <br />without receiving any signals from the brain.<br />The two groups of nerve cells have <br />distinct functions; learning cells are <br />not needed for recalling what the <br />spinal cord had learned, and memory <br />cells were not needed for learning, Aya Takeoka, principal investigator at Japan's <br />RIKEN Center for Brain Science, via 'Newsweek'.<br />The team hopes their results could help <br />develop new rehabilitative training methods <br />for patients with spinal cord damage.<br />Not only do these results challenge <br />the prevailing notion that motor learning <br />and memory are solely confined to brain <br />circuits, but we showed that we could <br />manipulate spinal cord motor recall, <br />which has implications for therapies <br />designed to improve recovery <br />after spinal cord damage, Aya Takeoka, principal investigator at Japan's <br />RIKEN Center for Brain Science, via 'Newsweek'.<br />The team's findings <br />were published in the <br />journal 'Science.'
