Engineering spinal cord repair

Jordan W Squair; Matthieu Gautier; Michael V Sofroniew; Grégoire Courtine; Mark A Anderson

doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2021.10.006

Engineering spinal cord repair

Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2021 Dec:72:48-53. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2021.10.006. Epub 2021 Oct 22.

Authors

Jordan W Squair¹, Matthieu Gautier¹, Michael V Sofroniew², Grégoire Courtine³, Mark A Anderson⁴

Affiliations

¹ Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; NeuroRestore, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
² Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; NeuroRestore, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: gregoire.courtine@epfl.ch.
⁴ Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; NeuroRestore, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: mark.anderson@epfl.ch.

PMID: 34695766
DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2021.10.006

Abstract

Neurological damage caused by spinal cord injury in humans has been observed for over three thousand years and impacts the lives of several hundred thousand people worldwide. Despite this prevalence and its associated consequences, there is no treatment to repair the injured spinal cord. Evidence gathered over the last several decades has provided mechanistic information on the complex cascade of events following traumatic spinal cord injury and this is paving the way towards mechanism based repair strategies. In this review, we summarize state-of-the-art biological and engineering repair strategies and posit that complete repair will be dependent on cataloguing the molecular signatures and growth requirements of the different neuron subpopulations in the brain and spinal cord.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Humans
Spinal Cord Injuries* / surgery
Spinal Cord Regeneration*