Contused Spinal Cord Injury: Light at the End of the Tunnel?

     Spinal cord injury is one of the most devastating injuries that can ever be experienced. The reasons are not far-fetched: It is life-changing, irreversible, and results in paralysis that can only be managed by supportive care, surgery, or therapy. The non-availability of treatment options for spinal cord injuries has been a concern for clinicians and researchers alike for years. Many options have been explored with little success but there seems to be hope on the horizon with the new research conducted by Xiaoli et.al (2020). In the study titled "the effect of nanofiber-hydrogel composite on neural tissue repair and regeneration in the contused spinal cord" (Xiaoli et.al, 2020), a group of researchers from the United States, China, Japan, and the Netherlands investigated the possibilities of using nanofiber hydrogel composite to speed up neural repair in contused spinal cord injuries. It has previously been confirmed by research that the real issue with spinal cord injuries is the loss of nervous tissue caused by non-repair and regeneration of the endogenous nervous tissue. If repair and regeneration can be fixed, then healing may be accelerated, and the spinal cord could function like it did before the injury.

    In the study, the researchers engineered a nano-fiber composite (NHC) that was then injected into the contused spinal cord of a model adult rat. This NHC mimics the microarchitecture and mechanical structure of the soft tissue matrix and unlike NHC from previous studies that use physical mixing to combine both hydrogel and fibrous phases (Wang et al., 2017), this novel NHC relies on the interfacial bonding between fibers and the hydrogel network. The bonding allows the shape of the composite to be retained thereby upholding the mechanical integrity of the injured site while it also allows for sufficient porosity which then provides cellular background for tissue regeneration and repair.  (Xiaoli et.al, 2020). 

    Results of the study showed that there was obvious improvement in the injured spinal cord after the injection of the NHC. These improvements include vascularization of the injured site, increased axonal growth in the injured site, inflammation shift and neurogenesis. Although this research was conducted in a non-human subject, it has potential in solving the age long problems of spinal cord injury. If fully functional and able to work in humans, this will change the course in the management and treatment of contused spinal cord injuries. 

                                                                    References

Li, X., Zhang, C., Haggerty, A. E., Yan, J., Lan, M., Seu, M., Yang, M., Marlow, M. M., Maldonado-Lasunción, I., Cho, B., Zhou, Z., Chen, L., Martin, R., Nitobe, Y., Yamane, K., You, H., Reddy, S., Quan, D.-P., Oudega, M., & Mao, H.-Q. (2020). The effect of a nanofiber-hydrogel composite on Neural Tissue Repair and regeneration in the contused spinal cord. Biomaterials, 245, 119978. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2020.119978 

Wang, Q., He, Y., Zhao, Y., Xie, H., Lin, Q., He, Z., Wang, X., Li, J., Zhang, H., Wang, C., Gong, F., Li, X., Xu, H., Ye, Q., & Xiao, J. (2017). A thermosensitive heparin-poloxamer hydrogel bridges AFGF to treat spinal cord injury. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 9(8), 6725–6745. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b13155