Stem Cells and Spinal Cord Injury

Stem cells are multi-cellular organisms which have the ability to renew themselves into various cell types (specialized cells). There are actually two kinds of stem cells :
1. the embryonic stem cells which are derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts
2. the adult stem cells which are derived from adult tissues
benefits of stem cell research
Nowadays, stem cells treatment has been suggested for many acute diseases. But most of the stem cells treatments' accuracies only done (succeed) on animal (rats) tests, and haven't proceed for human test. However, there is a positive chance for stem cells to cure spinal cord injury.
Spinal cord injury is the damage of cells or the nerve tracts of spinal cord. The spinal cord injury is very critical because it destroys the connection / link between the nerve tracts (myelinated fiber tracts) and the brain which means signals cannot reach the brain because of the broken connection. Depend on its severity, sometimes it can also damage the grey substance in the core of the cord and interrupts the work of interneurons and motorneurons.



Spinal cord injury is caused by trauma (car accidents, war, etc.), tumor, ischemia, developmental disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, demyelinative diseases, transverse myelitis, and vascular malformations.

The experiments prove stem cells cure spinal cord injury on rats

1. Hans Keirstead and his colleagues of Reeve-Irvine Research Center in UC Irvine found that human embryonic stem cell was successfully restored the insulation tissue of neurons in rats which showed the motor neurons recovery. But the stem cells treatment only succeeded on the rats treated seven days after the initial injury, and couldn't cure the rats that injured for ten months. Through this finding, it is strongly recommended that the stem cells treatment on spinal cord injury is given to patients in their early stage of injury.

2. The UCI team also experimented on human embryonic stem cells in curing spinal cord injury. They specialized the stem cells into early-stage oligodendrocyte cells. Oligodendrocytes are the materials for building myelin. The myelin is an isolated nerve fiber, works to maintain the electrical conduction in the central nervous system. In spinal cord injury situation, the myelin is damaged and interrupts the sensorneurons and motorneurons' activities, sometimes it even causes paralysis.

The UCI team divided the rats into two groups. The first group was the rats injured for seven days, and the second group was rats injured for ten months. In the first group, the oligodendrocyte cells successfully formed myelin tissues covering the damaged neurons. After two months, the first group rats showed improvements in walking ability, but the second group rats remain paralyzed because the oligodendrocyte could not form myelin to cover the damaged neurons for the scar tissues were already there