Yale Celebrates 20 Years Of Advances In Neuroscience And Regeneration

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 22 Oct 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Top scientists, representatives of the Veterans Administration and paralyzed veterans will join Yale University and West Haven officials Oct. 30 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Yale Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research.

Yale President Richard Levin, Robert Alpern, M.D., dean of the Yale School of Medicine and Mayor John Picard will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new research wing built at the center, home to some of the world's most exciting research advances in nerve repair and pain research.

The daylong celebration will be held begin at 9:00 AM in the Donaldson Room in Building 2 at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System at 950 Campbell Avenue. The program concludes at 3:00 PM with laboratory demonstrations and tours of Buildings 27 and 34.

Among the advances to be celebrated:

- The demonstration that stem cells derived from bone marrow and injected intravenously can travel to site of spinal cord injuries and participate in repair.
- A molecular explanation of why some patients with multiple sclerosis recover lost functions, such as the ability to walk. Researchers are now attempting to induce remission in patients with MS.
- Description of the molecular causes of phantom and neuropathic pain, debilitating and difficult to treat conditions that affect millions of people.
- Groundbreaking discovery that nerve cells remain viable after spinal cord injury but fail to conduct signals due to loss of myelin insulation. Building on the insight, the center is exploring transplantation of stem cells which travel to and repair de-myelinated cells.

News Clips

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3502
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3345
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http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3367
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3267
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=4367

Link

Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research

Yale University