Abstract:

Traumatic injuries to spinal cord elicit diverse signaling pathways leading to unselective and complex pathological outcomes: death of multiple classes of neural cells, formation of cystic cavities and glial scars, disruption of axonal connections, and demyelination of spared axons, all of which can contribute more or less to debilitating functional impairments found in patients with spinal cord injury. The multitude of pathobiological processes involved in spinal cord trauma may make it highly challenging to develop a clinically meaningful therapeutic approach targeting only a specific molecule or signaling pathway. A hopeful alternative might be a cell therapy, especially a transplantation approach using neural stem cells (NSC) with a clear potential to differentiate into various neural cell types. Provision of NSCs with capacity to differentiate into mature neural cells can ideally replace lost segmental neurons and dying oligodendrocytes around surviving axons. Furthermore, NSCs secrete various growth factors that provide protective or pro-regenerative effects. It has been also demonstrated that NSCs can exert powerful modulatory effects on immune cells ameliorating secondary degenerative processes.