I see muscle stimulators and connections to the nervous
system as stop-gap measures that will have to do until science
figures out how to force central nervous system tissue to
regenerate and connect itself properly.

        Nothing is as good as having working neurons carrying
signals to and from their destination, but there's this big
problem of our body's absolute determination to thwart
regeneration of the central nervous tissue after a certain point
in our development.  This probably has some valid function in the
overall scheme of things, but it keeps brains and spines from
mending traumatic damage.

        There is evidence that signals traveling through nerves
actually change the characteristics of the nerve pathways and that
may be one of the ways bodies wire themselves from the start.  An
un-checked ability for central nervous tissue to grow might cause
us all kinds of trouble later in life, but we have got to be able
to turn that ability back on in a selected manner before we can
ever repair damaged spinal cords or other central nervous system
tissue.

        I got the impression from the program that both the
stop-gap approach and the idea of causing our bodies to heal
themselves were getting lots of attention.  Probably neither
field gets as much funding as the experts in it would like, but I
didn't hear anybody say that sticking electrodes in muscles is
anything but an attempt to make the best out of a bad situation
until something better comes along.

        It may be 5 years or 50 years before we figure out the
secret of splicing a severed or damaged spine, but that is more
or less the holy grail in that it will enable a huge number of
possibilities related to the human condition that were only pipe
dreams.  This is the same problem that keeps us from being able
to repair damaged retinas or restore nerve deafness or, for that
matter, any organic brain damage.

        My apologies to those in the medical field if I misused
any terminology, but the topic of this program has interested me
for many years.

        In the late sixties, my father worked at the University
of Arkansas Rehabilitation Center in Hot Springs.  That campus, a
former Army hospital that reportedly housed General Paten for a
while, had a large unit that dealt with spinal cord injuries and
the development of strategies for the clients to cope.  I have
been amazed that until recently, what was true about somebody who
broke their neck in 1967 was still true in the nineties.  It
still is basically true for the man or woman on the street, but
the last ten years or so have probably gotten us closer than the
previous 100 years.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group