The neurite outgrowth of motor neurons was detected by NF-200 immunohistochemicalstainingandcomputer imageanalysis system to measure the lengths of nervous process.
Applying an electric current and getting a muscle to jump is easy. (Alessandro Volta jolted a frog's legs 218 years ago.) Peckham is harvesting the body's own electrical signals to control muscles that have been cut off from the nervous system, a process called functional electrical stimulation, or FES. Peckham runs a group called the Cleveland FES Center, a collaboration among Case Western Reserve and two Cleveland hospitals.
The team believe that not only do the growth factors play a key role in development of the central nervous system, but also that too much of them may disrupt the normal process by which a cell develops into the correct type and moves to the right area, and dies at the right time.