Repair strategies for traumatic spinal cord injury, with special emphasis on novel biomaterial-based approaches.

Repair strategies for traumatic spinal cord injury, with special emphasis on novel biomaterial-based approaches. Rev Neurol (Paris). 2020 Jan 22;: Authors: Soares S, von Boxberg Y, Nothias F Abstract As a part of the central nervous system (CNS), the adult mammalian spinal cord displays only very poor ability for self-repair in response to traumatic lesions, which mostly lead to more or less severe, life-long disability. While even adult CNS neurons have a certain plastic potential, their intrinsic regenerative capacity highly varies among different neuronal populations and in the end, regeneration is almost completely inhibited due to extrinsic factors such as glial scar and cystic cavity formation, excessive and persistent inflammation, presence of various inhibitory molecules, and absence of trophic support and of a growth-supportive extracellular matrix structure. In recent years, a number of experimental animal models have been developed to overcome these obstacles. Since all those studies based on a single approach have yielded only relatively modest functional recovery, it is now consensus that different therapeutic approaches will have to be combined to synergistically overcome the multiple barriers to CNS regeneration, especially in humans. In this review, we particularly emphasize the hope raised by the development of novel, implantable biomaterials that should favor the reconstruction of the damaged nervous tissue, and ult...
Source: Revue Neurologique - Category: Neurology Tags: Rev Neurol (Paris) Source Type: research