NT3-chitosan elicits robust endogenous neurogenesis to enable functional recovery after spinal cord injury

This study explores a new approach to treat spinal cord injuries by stimulating the body's own neural stem cells to repair the damage. The approach involves using a special material called chitosan combined with a protein called neurotrophin-3 (NT3). When the NT3-chitosan material was placed in a completely severed spinal cord in rats, it helped the rats regain some sensory and motor functions. This suggests that the material created a good environment for the stem cells to grow and form new connections in the injured spinal cord. The study indicates that encouraging the body's own stem cells to create new nerve cells could be a promising way to treat spinal cord injuries.

• 1
  NT3-chitosan, when inserted into a 5 mm gap of completely transected and excised rat thoracic spinal cord, elicited robust activation of endogenous neural stem cells.
• 2
  The activated neural stem cells formed functional neural networks, which interconnected the severed ascending and descending axons, resulting in sensory and motor behavioral recovery.
• 3
  Enhancing endogenous neurogenesis by NT3-chitosan could be a novel strategy for treatment of SCI.