Laser and SCI and US Armed Forces Institute

[albert bohbot]

Wise,

Have you heard of or do you have any information on a research lab at the Armed Forces Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, which studies laser therapy for sci?
Source: LLLT laser therapy list at www.topica.com, posted by Ted Mohns
Thanks,
Albert

[giambjj]

ALbert:

Could not find the info with your link?

JJG

[albert bohbot]

JJG,

You need to sign up to the list to have access to it.
It's a shame that the army hasn't contacted us, we could have join forces for the SCI cause.
Albert

[sci-co-pilot]

Same here as Dr.J.J..

[Sue Pendleton]

Dr Juanita Anders at the Uniformed Services University"s Neuroscience Center works with lasers in conjunction with spinal cord injuries.

http://www.usuhs.mil/nes/neuropagefaculty.html

http://www.usuhs.mil/nes/janders.html

http://www.usuhs.mil/nes/Anders.htm

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

[Wise Young]

Albert, I think that I posted an abstract recently and there are several papers in the Society for Neuroscience meeting. I will try to gather some data. Wise.

[albert bohbot]

Sue and Wise,
Thanks for the interesting information. I think that we have the same reasoning and may benefit to share our information. We contacted Dr Juanita Anders and will keep you informed of her answer.
Albert

[albert bohbot]

If you want to see results with the laserponcture� technique, check the links below; one of our patients could resume his activities after his accident and walked with braces (KAFOs) to have his graduation diploma.
http://www.usna-njpc.org/images/IMG_0041.jpg or
http://www.usna-njpc.org/images/IMG_0038.jpg
OR
http://www.pvamagazines.com/pnnews/m...le.php?art=230 or http://www.healingtherapies.info/laserpuncture2.htm

I'm willing to share my knowledge with this lab to make the research on spinal cord progress and help the sci community to have access to a treatment in the short term.

[albert bohbot]

Dear Wise,

We found on www.walt.nu/mailer/index.html the abstract of a thesis defended by Kimberly Byrnes, which was done in Juanita Anders�s lab at the USU www.usuhs.mil/nes/Anders.htm. Up to now the critic done to laserponcture was that there is no scientific explanation. This work gives the beginning of an explanation, namely the interaction between laser and the spinal cord.

It�s been a long time we understood that acupuncture and the acupunctural network are a mediator carring light in the body and inducing some biological phenomena, beyond the esoteric nature that many wanted to find in acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

Our therapeutic approach is different from the one used in the thesis: our network is a criss-cross matrix on the skin using meridians and dermatoms to the spinal cord. This way of thinking comes from the studies we have done for 20 years on acupuncture.

The laser we use if different from the one used by Kimberley Byrnes or Shimon Rochkind in Israel. But as we are treating humans, it isn�t conceivable to open the spinal cord and see if there is axonal regrowth or if macrophages had such or such role. The locomotor or sensitive assessments before and after laser treatment are the only way of controlling; the MRI gives the starting point, a picture of the injury. If during the treatment new MRIs are done, they show that the injury hasn�t changed though progress appeared (recovery of walk with or without braces, partial or complete recovery of bladder and/or sexual functions).

All this leads us to expect very important and interesting investigations to come. Once again we regret of not being able to share our information with the teams working on laser though we do not work at the same level (mice versus humans).

We hope that with these new data, we can compare our research with the different teams and manufacture a generation of lasers that will help the sci to recover quicklier. But I may be a mild dreamer and the laws of the market may not allow such a humanist approach unless it is my Lafayette nature.

Albert

[Mike C]

This popped up in The Sunday Herald.

Scottish Laser Brings
Hope Of Paralysis Cure
By Noel Young
The Sunday Herald
11-9-3

"...some of the advances in the field of light therapy are 'almost too incredible to believe.'"

Hopes of a breakthrough in treating patients with paralysing back injuries have been raised by a groundbreaking experiment which for the first time fused together a mammal's broken spinal cord.

The technique in which Scottish-designed lasers were used to repair the spinal cords of paralysed rats ñ restoring the animals' mobility ñ is likely to be tested on humans next year.

Professor Juanita Anders, the lead researcher on the project at the Uniformed Services University in Maryland, said that some of the advances in the field of light therapy are "almost too incredible to believe."

Dr Jackson Streeter, whose firm has now licensed the technology developed by Anders, said: "If we could have lasered Christopher Reeve in the days immediately after his injuries, he might have been walking today".

At the moment the university researchers are concentrating on acute injuries ñ those which have just happened ñ as opposed to chronic conditions. They are confident however that the more complex treatment of old injuries ñ such as those sustained by Reeve in 1995 ñ is also within their grasp.

The US university where the laser work has been carried out is funded by the US Defence department. It has 900 students, most of whom wear uniform.

The university is on the same heavily-guarded campus as Bethesda Naval Hospital where President George W Bush undergoes regular medical examinations.

The laser breakthrough work was carried out by Anders, her associate Dr Kimberly Byrnes and six other team members. Using lasers from Thor International, of Kilmartin, Argyll, the team was able to restore complete mobility to 10 white laboratory rats which had previously had their spinal cords cut.

A group of ten rats, which also had their cords cut but were not given the light treatment made no recovery.

"The 10 animals chosen received daily doses of light for about 50 minutes a day for two weeks," said Anders. "Nine weeks later when they were tested, they had recovered their mobility."

Dr Byrnes will make a presentation on the work, which earned her a PhD, at a Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans today. The research will also be detailed in a book issued to delegates at the conference, the world's largest and most influential gathering of its kind with 28,000 experts expected to attend.

The experiment has its roots in former US President Ronald Reagan's controversial Star Wars programme. "We were called to a conference and asked to put up bio projects involving the use of lasers," said Anders. "My project won funding of $60,000 a year and we were on our way."

The toughest challenge facing the scientists was how to establish that lasers were actually penetrating the flesh and reaching the broken spinal cord.

That was where the lasers produced by the tiny Thor company came into their own. Thor employs just three people at Kilmartin, designing and building the instruments, led by Peter Gaskin. Three more staff at its adminstrative and marketing HQ in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, make up the workforce.

Managing director James Carroll said: "I don't know how the Americans heard about us but we have since had lots of flattering e-mails, praising the stability of our equipment."

Anders said: "The power output from other lasers tended to be inconsistent and we had to be precise. The Thor machines were the right ones for the job."

She added that they still did not fully understand the mechanism, in much the same way that the mechanism of acupuncture is not understood.

"We believe the light somehow alters the behaviour of the cells, inhibiting the immune system and allowing the neurons that make up the spinal cord to regroup," she said.

The professor added that she had faced massive cynicism over the years regarding her research. She said: "They would ask me: 'Why are you wasting your time on this? You will never get light to penetrate flesh.'"

Her immediate boss was among the unconvinced, "until I showed him the changes in the cells of the rats after our experiments. Now he is completely on side," she said.

The lab team are now working on ways to enable the light to reach the spinal cord in a human. "So far the results are encouraging," said Anders.

The first tests are likely to be carried out by PhotoThera, a firm in San Diego, California, and will initially concentrate on the treatment of strokes.

"We believe the technique developed by Dr Anders will penetrate skull bone and tissue and enable us to reach the site of a stroke with a laser and minimise brain damage," said the companyÃs Dr Streeter. Tests on spinal injuries are also a priority but may be delayed because the project's neurosurgeon who was working with Streeter is in Iraq and it is not known when he might return.

"We are tentatively aiming for the beginning of 2005 to commence our research," said Streeter.

"So I have stayed as I am, without regret, seperated from the normal human condition." Guy Sajer

[The mom]

Mike C
wonderful report! Surely this will make the major networks this week!

[Vike]

Albert....I would say you are way ahead of your time! Keep it up.

[The mom]

Is this the bridge chronics need for OEG?!

[kahma]

Amersham, Buckinghamshire thats 5 mins away from me. so maybe i should go shoping with my crow-bar [img]/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]
anyway do you think they could use this in conjuction this with oeg or stem cell treatments? maybe it could increase chances of better recovery.

[Steven Edwards]

kahma, this should work well by itself... don't know how it would effect regenerating nerves or axons. That'd be another study. [img]/forum/images/smilies/frown.gif[/img]

-Steven