Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: Bridging spinal cord injuries. | Journal of Biology BioMed Central Minireview Bridging spinal cord injuries James W Fawcett Address Cambridge University Centre for Brain Repair Robinson Way Cambridge CB2 0PY UK. Email jf108@ Published 15 October 2008 Journal of Biology 2008 7 25 doi jbiol89 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http content 7 7 25 2008 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract One strategy for spinal cord injury repair is to make cellular bridges that support axon regeneration. However the bridging cells often fail to integrate with host tissue and may lead to increased pain sensitivity. Recent work has tested bridging with two forms of progenitor-derived astrocyte. One type integrates suppresses scar formation and promotes axon regeneration whereas another very similar type reported in Journal of Biology does not support regeneration and increases pain sensitivity. Repair of the injured spinal cord has been one of the great quests of experimental neuroscience since Tello and Cajal first showed in 1903 that axons in the central nervous system CNS can be made to regenerate. Sadly we have yet to achieve a treatment that is licensed for this purpose in human patients although advances such as that described by Davies et al. in this issue of the Journal of Biology 1 will help to bring this goal closer. One of the earliest concepts in spinal cord repair was to build a bridge across the injury that would provide a road along which regenerating axons could cross the injury site to find suitable targets form connections and restore function. This was first attempted by Peter Richardson Sam David and Albert Aguayo in 1981 2 3 when they implanted grafts of peripheral nerve tissue which is permissive to axon regeneration across a spinal injury. These experiments demonstrated both the possibilities and the problems of the bridging concept. Axons regenerated into the grafts but only from nearby neurons and hardly any of the axons .
