Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have found that boosting the transport of mitochondria along neuronal axons actually increases the likelihood of mouse nerve cells to repair themselves when faced with injury. The complete study was published in The Journal of Cell Biology and suggests a potential new strategy in order to stimulate the regrowth of human neurons that have been damaged either by disease or injury. Sheng and his research fellow Bing Zhou, who was the first author of the study, found that when the axons are severed on a mature mouse, neighboring mitochondria are damaged and are then unable to provide enough ATP to support nerve regeneration. When researchers genetically removed syntaphilin from nerve cells, mitochondria transport increased. Damaged mitochondria were replaced with healthy counterparts that were more than capable of producing ATP. Syntaphilin-deficient mature neurons were again able to regrow upon injury, as they were when they were young. Removing syntaphilin from adult mice caused sciatic nerves to regenerate after injury. http://sciencenewsjournal.com/regenerating-damaged-neurons-may-possible-mobilization-mitochondria/ Study: http://jcb.rupress.org/content/early/2016/06/07/jcb.201605101.abstract
