Topic:

Biological treatment of chronic spinal cord injury

The PURPOSE of the Summer School is to provide knowledge-sharing opportunity for scientists investigating neurocontrol of movement as well as for clinicians practicing neurobiological-based intervention (for the repair of injured spinal cord) and human neuroscientists assessing components and integrals of motorcontrol (for implementation of motor tasks). The professionals who fit the profile of the Vienna Summer School frequently attend scientific and professional meetings designed to review achieved methodologies and technologies. However, these specializations of sciences, although positive, can create barriers between disciplines, and disbalance and delay of achievement. There is an urgent need for integration of new knowledge. This can easily be delayed and the ultimate goal of repairing malfunctioning, injured human spinal cords postponed unnecessarily. The aim of the Vienna Summer School, October 2008, is therefore to minimize barriers between disciplines significant to the “cure of spinal cord paralysis and to facilitate progress of the biological treatment of spinal cord injury. We do hope that the Vienna Summer School 2008 will (in the Vienna Autumn) initiate progress by “harvesting scientific nuggets” for creating complementary and convergent trends in the science of healing human spinal cord injury.