A study in mice hints at a new way to treat spinal cord injuries

The finding suggests that a drug to ease swelling can speed recovery and stop cell death

A digital reconstruction of a single nerve cell, colored green, is dotted with smaller red areas.

After a spinal cord injury, a certain kind of nerve cell in mice swells up. This reconstruction shows a mouse neuron dotted with a protein (red) that allows the cell to puff up after trauma.

Q. Li et al/STM 2024

After a devastating spinal cord injury, mice’s nerve cells balloon up in size.