Understanding rapid tendon regeneration in newts may one day help human athletes
bioengineer.org
bioengineer.org
I was surprised to see that the newt doesn't repair tendons with the same material. It uses a 'tendon-like collagenous tissue'.
Do they make all repairs with an analogous tissue or only select ones?
The study of soft-tissue healing in animals besides humans has definitely informed what and when medical interventions are used in MSK healthcare. But even in the easier case of mere healing, most of the good animal model studies have led to only a kind of negative medical progress — i.e. they’ve given us reason to stop providing a medical treatment we previously thought might be beneficial.
Sticking with tendons for example. Docs used to be much more willing to give corticosteroid shots as a treatment for chronic tendinopathy, but more and more animal and clinical studies show that corticosteriods have a catabolic effect on tendons in the long-term and so should be used only when the short-term benefits are expected to be very large.
Medical interventions where regeneration in the context of injury is the specific goal (e.g. PRP and stem cell therapy) have a very mixed reputation within MSK circles, I believe — many clinicians seeing those treatments as basically a sham at this point.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152998/
It is important to keep such research in perspective. I see it as "proof-of-concept" research - studies with biologically intriguing findings that might amount someday to something effective, treatment-wise. For now though, regenerative therapies are underwhelming IMHO.