Abstrakt
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating trauma that often leads to a permanent loss of motor and sensory functions, pain, and spasticity. A functional repair of injured tissue in the adult central nervous system remains a major issue for current biomedical research and its advancing clinical translation.
Regenerative medicine, together with tissue engineering and various interdisciplinary methods, may offer new approaches to reduce neuronal death, glial scars at the injury site, and induce axonal regeneration. In this review we introduce SCI, its pathophysiology, available experimental models, and behavioral testing, which have been used for its further study.
We also provide a comprehensive overview of selected experimental approaches based on cell transplantation, antioxidative treatment, laser therapy, biomaterial scaffolds, and their combinations. Finally, we consider the future direction of spinal neuromodulation research such as electrical stimulation or molecular manipulation, which could overcome molecular barriers inhibiting axonal growth to promote regeneration.