Abstract:

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), defined as physical trauma to the spinal column yielding altered motor, sensory, or autonomic function, is a devastating neurological disease causing major impact at both personal and societal level. Unfortunately, to date no effective treatment exists for the major neurological deficits of SCI. However, there are several hopeful neuroprotective agents beingcurrently investigated in ongoing preclinical and clinical trials. The aim of neuroprotective treatments is not only to reduce cell death and reduce mechanisms of secondary injury, but also to promote regeneration and tissue repair. One of these promising therapeutic strategies consists on cell transplantation to replace dead or damaged cells and provide trophic support. In particular, adult neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) are especially attractive to promote tissue repair after SCI, since they readily expand in vitro forming colonies of undifferentiated cells called neurospheres, and are committed to the neural lineage.Adult NSPCs may have advantages over embryonic or fetal cells: 1) in some cases it will be possible to harvest them in an autologous fashion; 2) they may have less oncogenic potential than embryonic stem cells; and 3) the avoidance of some of the ethical issues surrounding the use of stem cells of embryonic or fetal origin.