Mammals, from tiny rodents to humans, never usually recover from serious spinal cord or other central nervous system injuries. Except, it seems, for the African spiny mouse.

Microglia promote maladaptive plasticity in autonomic circuitry after spinal cord injury in mice. Science Translational Medicine, 2024; 16 (751) DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adi3259 ...

Aya Takeoka at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan and colleagues have discovered the neural circuitry in the spinal cord that allows brain-independent motor learning.

Fluorescence imaging can reveal details of neuronal activity in sections of the spinal cords of animals, but collecting data from living subjects can be challenging. Developments in micro-optics ...

More information: Ming-Dong Zhang et al, Neural ensembles that encode nocifensive mechanical and heat pain in mouse spinal cord, Nature Neuroscience (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01921-6.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan and colleagues have discovered the neural circuitry in the spinal cord that allows brain-independent motor learning. Published in ...

Using stem cells to restore lost functions due to spinal cord injury (SCI) has long been an ambition of scientists and doctors. Nearly 18,000 people in the United States suffer SCIs each year, with ...

In trials on living mice, the combination of implanted microprism and wearable microscope was able to image astrocytes, glial cells in the spinal cord involved in pain processing, and follow their ...