Brain and spinal cord trauma: what we know about the therapeutic potential of insulin growth factor 1 gene therapy

Spinal cord injury can lead to cognitive and emotional dysfunctions, not just physical impairments. These issues arise from changes in the brain, particularly the hippocampus, and are not simply due to lifestyle changes or medications. Insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1) gene therapy shows promise as a treatment for these brain-related problems after spinal cord injury. It can help restore the brain's ability to generate new neurons and reduce harmful inflammation. This therapy might also be useful for treating traumatic brain injury, as it addresses the neuroinflammatory component crucial in both conditions. IGF-1 gene therapy could become a new way to treat both traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury.

• 1
  Spinal cord injury (SCI) induces cognitive and mood deficits that are not induced by lifestyle changes, drugs of abuse, and combined medication but are related to changes in brain structures involved in cognition and emotion, such as the hippocampus.
• 2
  Chronic spinal cord injury decreases neurogenesis, enhances glial reactivity leading to hippocampal neuroinflammation, and triggers cognitive deficits, also known as tertiary damage.
• 3
  Insulin growth factor 1 gene therapy recovers neurogenesis and induces the polarization from pro-inflammatory towards anti-inflammatory microglial phenotypes, which represents a potential strategy to treat the neuroinflammation that supports tertiary damage.