Spinal Cord Injury - Research Directions

Research Directions

Scientists are investigating many promising avenues for treatment of spinal cord injury. Numerous articles in the medical literature describe research, mostly in animal models, aimed at reducing the paralyzing effects of injury and promoting regrowth of functional nerve fibers. Despite the devastating effects of the condition, commercial funding for research investigating a cure after spinal cord injury is limited, partially due to the small size of the population of potential beneficiaries. Some experimental treatments, such as systemic hypothermia, have been performed in isolated cases in order draw attention to the need for further preclinical and clinical studies to help clarify the role of hypothermia in acute spinal cord injury. Despite the limitation on funding, a number of experimental treatments such as local spine cooling and oscillating field stimulation have reached controlled human trials,

Advances in identification of an effective therapeutic target after spinal cord injury have been newsworthy, and considerable media attention is often drawn towards new developments in this area. However, aside from methylprednisolone, none of these developments have reached even limited use in the clinical care of human spinal cord injury in the U.S.