The world of science has been grappling over the question of spinal cord injuries and their long-term effects on motor function, which in serious cases, can affect all motor abilities in the body. The concern with spinal cord injuries is the inability of nerve cells to proliferate near the site of the injury, which in turn, leads to the inability of these nerve cells to send signals to the brain for controlled movement. Since the spinal cord plays a crucial role in sending nerve cells from the brain to the body (as well as the body to the brain), a severe case of a spinal cord injury can lead to untreatable paralysis of the body's motor function. There has been a dilemma for medical and scientific professionals to find solutions for spinal cord regeneration due to its extremities towards sensation, movement, and coordination. Usually, research towards finding a cure is done using an animal model due to the high level of risk for humans with spinal cord injuries. There have been many discoveries made with advancements in biomedicine, including the usage of stem cells, hydrophilic polymers (hydrogels), along other potential treatments that could possibly lead to a solution for spinal cord injuries.
With further research being instigated towards finding a possible cure to promote spinal cord regeneration, many researchers have been using animal models to test their new treatments for potential use on human patients. In one study conducted by Li et al., the researchers focus on the usage of hydrogels, in which they produced an "injectable nano fibber-hydrogel composite (NHC)" that would be injected into the spinal cord contusions near the injury site (Li et al. 2020). They were trying to find regenerate outcomes based on the discovery that there is a formed connection near the site between the fibers and the hydrogel that aids in promoting 'mechanical strength' (Li et al. 2020). What the researchers found after injecting the NHC was that there was less spinal cord thinning, an increase in blood density and axon density, and an increase in tissue formation (Li et al. 2020). Although there was an overall positive outcome towards spinal cord regeneration at the injury site, the research was conducted using rats and not humans. This isn't to say that there couldn't be further research instigated for human spinal cord regeneration with the usage of hydrogels.
Stem cells have also played a major role in the repair system for the body by providing new specialized cells that have been damaged. There has been much research conducted using the usage of stem cells for the regeneration of cells and overall repair and healing. A 2022 study conducted by Obara et al. focused on the recruitment of "encapsulated hair-follicle-associated pluripotent (HAP) stem cells" using a mouse model to examine chronic spinal cord injuries (Obara et al. 2022). The focus on HAP stem cells is due to previous research using various stem cells and their inability to differentiate into specialized cells, such as Schwan cells and neurons that are needed in spinal cord functionality. The researchers had implanted the HAP stem cells into the severed spinal cords of mice and found that there was a production of Schwann cells that aided in repair of the severed spinal cord, which lead to the spinal cord rejoining and a "regained comprehensive hind-limb locomotor performance" (Obara et al. 2022). Again, research on HAP stem cells was done using an animal model, but human HAP stem cells have been used on mice with considerable outcomes for regeneration to spinal cells. So there is a possibility for human HAP stem cells to produce positive regenerate outcomes for spinal cord injuries that must be further researched.
Work Cited
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., & Mao, H.-Q. (2020). The effect of a nanofiber-hydrogel composite on Neural Tissue Repair and regeneration in the contused spinal cord. Biomaterials. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0142961220302246?via%3Dihub
Obara, K., Shirai, K., Hamada, Y., Arakawa, N., Yamane, M., Takaoka, N., Aki, R., Hoffman, R. M., & Amoh, Y. (2022, January 27). Chronic Spinal Cord Injury Functionally repaired by direct implantation of encapsulated hair-follicle-associated pluripotent (HAP) stem cells in a mouse model: Potential for Clinical Regenerative Medicine. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0262755
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