Raising the concentration of uric acid might help prevent some of the secondary cellular damage that occurs after spinal-cord injury (SCI) and promote the recovery of motor function, according to a new study.Similar to activated monocytes in multiple sclerosis, the neutrophils activated by SCI use peroxynitrite-dependent radicals to facilitate their invasion across the blood-brain barrier into the neural tissues, says study author D Craig Hooper (Thomas Jefferson Medical College, Philadephia, PA, USA). "This invasion and subsequent damage can be prevented by the inactivation of the radicals by uric acid, which is highly selective for these radicals and a normal constituent of human blood."
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