Figure 2. A “heat” shock to turbocharge the rate of regeneration.

The work of Ma and colleagues (8) tries to solve the problem of poor recovery by accelerating the rate at which axons regenerate. Overexpression of human Hsp27 in sensory and motor neurons in mice resulted in an accelerated rate of axonal regeneration akin to “turbocharging” a snail’s pace. This intervention is likely to be useful in any type of proximal nerve injury, such as severe cubital tunnel syndrome.