This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

The particular model we have had 2001 on the box, undoubtedly its been used/sold countless times.

Pretty sure these are nothing new on the scene, they just tailored them to be kid proof, the trick is they cant shut it off and go back to sleep. I like the loud tone thought, hope it works. Dang Iphones will take over the world someday lol...

Billmeik wrote:well MarkW that can be your way and kind of the mainstream way but on this thread 'there is no remission only reorganization' . i don't know how contraversial that idea is but I heard someone voice it in a talk over 10 years ago. Whoever it was backed up their argument with fMri the first ones I think. I think the evidence from imaging doesn't back up 'remission' as a concept.What we thought of as 'remylenation' was actually new pathways forming in a whole new area.

In case you are reading this thread for factual information - both de-mylenation and re-mylenation occur in the human brain. Sclerotic plaques have been detected in people without MS (by MRI) and these plaques disappear later.
MarkW

PS I run and walk quickly in my dreams but in reality.

CureIous---great story on your kids' brain training. It's true, technology is allowing us better ways to learn desired behavior. Just like Pavlov, right?? I loved the computer game that my son used to learn to type when he was in grade school...based on a basketball game scoring. He's now in high school and types 100 words a minute, breezes through school work, essays...all by touch.

Mark--
We're discussing plasticity, or the rerouting of gray matter dam­age by reor­ga­niz­ing and form­ing new con­nec­tions between intact neu­rons. In order to recon­nect, the neu­rons need to be stim­u­lated through activity. Neuroplasticity is about axons, not myelin or remyelination or relapses...that's a whole different topic. Read Norman Doidge's book, The Brain that Changes Itself, it's wonderful. But don't assume we don't know what we're talking about...(cause we do!)

The concept of brain plasticity covers all the mechanisms involved in the capacity of the brain to adjust and remodel itself in response to environmental requirements, experience, skill acquisition, and new challenges including brain lesions.

Advances in neuroimaging and neurophysiologic techniques have increased our knowledge of task-related changes in cortical representation areas in the intact and injured human brain. The recognition that neuronal progenitor cells proliferate and differentiate in the subventricular zone and dentate gyrus in the adult mammalian brain has raised the hope that regeneration may be possible after brain lesions. Regeneration will require that new cells differentiate, survive, and integrate into existing neural networks and that axons regenerate. To what extent this will be possible is difficult to predict. Current research explores the possibilities to modify endogenous neurogenesis and facilitate axonal regeneration using myelin inhibitory factors. After apoptotic damage in mice new cortical neurons can form long-distance connections. Progenitor cells from the subventricular zone migrate to cortical and subcortical regions after ischemic brain lesions, apparently directed by signals from the damaged region. Postmortem studies on human brains suggest that neurogenesis may be altered in degenerative diseases. Functional and anatomic data indicate that myelin inhibitory factors, cell implantation, and modification of extracellular matrix may be beneficial after spinal cord lesions. Neurophysiologic data demonstrating that new connections are functioning are needed to prove regeneration. Even if not achieving the goal, methods aimed at regeneration can be beneficial by enhancing plasticity in intact brain regions.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17392690
cheer

go cheer!

so we have 1eye and his ability to walk and I would like to put my vision forward as a case. It ays in the movie that you reorganize what you really really need, and well I've been working as a photographer lately
and I really need to be able to see. I bet 1 eye really needs to walk too.

so are there anecdotes of people teaching themselves to see better? I was blocked by thinking of the visual cortex as finite but he site's examples of the brain recruiting in other areas. Vision powered outside the visual cortex is intriguing. I wonder if there are ways to encourage such sight?Maybe that's the first step for you 1eye is imagining that walking is possible outside of the trashed motor cortex.

Can rerouting occur in the spinal column too?

David1949 wrote:Can rerouting occur in the spinal column too?

Yes, it can, David...but there is less axonal material to recruit from, which is why plasticity is "easier" in the brain. Here's a study looking at retraining after spinal injury--physical therapy is suggested.
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10 ... o.24.1.807
cheer

well that' seems to be what he's getting at. That the cns recruits new grey matter to solve problems.even outside the brain. I don't know how far that goes. anecdotes are super important.

hmm there's no grey matter outside the brain. But there are parts of the brain that drive the spinal cord. If those are damaged that's a good place for reorganization to work

Just to explain a bit more, Bill. Plasticity in the spine is all about axons....plasticity involves rerouting around damage by connecting axons. Axons are long, slender nerve fibers that are found in the spine and brain. In the spine, they are exclusively covered in myelin. (Whereas in the brain they can be found in gray matter and not myelinated.) The problem has been in axons transmitting signals when they are demyelinated, as in MS. But researchers are studying this. It is/will be possible to reconnect axons in a damaged spinal column.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 155231.htm
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/04/21/1100426108

have demonstrated that regenerating axons can be guided to their correct targets and re-form connections after spinal cord injury.

that would be big news to tRick Hansen

A guy who has a place here called NeuroGym told me in the spine there is a lot of redundancy. That means spare axons which are just passing the same signals as the other ones, not necessary, but in parallel. Makes things work better, but retraining can take place, by recruiting the redundant axons, still undamaged, from a different limb that still works. That's why it's important to keep whatever still works in top shape.. I saw an article about a guy who wanted more than anything to be able to play tennis, and so a giant gizmo that was a cross between a walker and a jolly jumper, was built for him so he could lunge about and not fall. I think the gym-owner retrains people using sports activity. When I was there I used a device he invented that was a computer game wired to two pads, one under each foot. Your pressure on each pad caused the paddle on the bottom of the screen to move right or left, if successful, to be under the "ball" when it arrived, and bounce it back up. This improved your balance. You had to be able to stand up, though. You could increase the speed that it would bounce, to make it harder. It measured a bunch of things you did and assessed what needed work. He also had a thing he called a "hip-assist walker". It was a walker with a system consisting of a rope that went from one handle, under your left foot, back up to the centre, through a pulley in the centre, back down under your right foot, back up again, and attached again to the right handle. As one foot went down, it would pull the other one up. Believe it or not, I could walk much more quickly with this walker, than I could with my own. I wanted him to sell me one, but he hadn't finished refining it. He is in the phone book, his name is Avi. I couldn't afford the one-on-one training that you need to really make progress. If I could, I would.

I'm going to have another procedure, and then see if I can get a hip-assist walker.

5 or6 grinding days, a bit depressed, making no progress, and then I was able to increase the weight for a few strokes and feel like it will be this week when I do 100 of em. Really I m fat and should be doing aerobic stuff but I don't have energy for that. Just a few lifts every hour for the last 40 days. (every second day) Strength is better than nothing.
I can see why weightlifters are kinda brain dead though. Thinking and talking about stupid muscle workouts makes you that way.

There's a machine called a NuStep that is basically a recumbent elliptical trainer, and you use it to try to improve your stepping. They're expensive but good for people like me that need cardio. They have a thing I've never tried that keeps your knees apart if like me, one has a tendency to fall over after I get tired (on the trike too). I worry that things like that and my AFO are training me to stay weak.