Spinal cord injury (SCI) can lead to paraplegia or quadriplegia. Although there are no fully restorative treatments for SCI, various rehabilitative, cellular and molecular therapies have been tested in animal models. Many of these have reached, or are approaching, clinical trials. Here, we review these potential therapies, with an emphasis on the need for reproducible evidence of safety and efficacy. Individual therapies are unlikely to provide a panacea. Rather, we predict that combinations of strategies will lead to improvements in outcome after SCI. Basic scientific research should provide a rational basis for tailoring specific combinations of clinical therapies to different types of SCI.
Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a life changing neurological condition with substantial socioeconomic implications for patients and their care-givers. Recent advances in m...
Signaling mechanisms that regulate astrocyte reactivity and scar formation after spinal cord injury (SCI) are not well defined. We used the Cre recombinase (Cre)- loxP system un...
Reactive astrocytes are prominent in the cellular response to spinal cord injury (SCI), but their roles are not well understood. We used a transgenic mouse model to study the co...
The hyperalgesia and spontaneous pain that occur following peripheral nerve injury may be related to abnormal peripheral input or altered central activity, or both. The present ...
Neuropathic pain is a common problem following spinal cord injury (SCI). Effective analgesic therapy has been hampered by the lack of knowledge about the mechanisms underlying p...
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