Regenerative Rehabilitation and Stem Cell Therapy Targeting Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Review of Preclinical Studies

Stem cell medicine has shown promise in restoring function after spinal cord injury (SCI) in the acute-to-subacute phase, but has not yet been as successful in the chronic phase, when the spinal cord tissue undergoes significant changes making it resistant to treatment. Regenerative rehabilitation combines regenerative medicine, such as stem cell therapy, with rehabilitation techniques to achieve synergistic effects. This review summarizes regenerative rehabilitation studies, categorizing them by the type of intervention, the location of the intervention, and the mechanism of action, with the goal of establishing a treatment regimen that induces robust functional recovery upon chronic SCI.

• 1
  Regenerative rehabilitation can directly influence transplanted cells, promoting differentiation into neurons and oligodendrocytes, and inducing plastic changes in the lumbar enlargement of the spinal cord.
• 2
  However, regenerative rehabilitation does not induce any remarkable histological change at the lesion epicenter of the chronically injured spinal cord.
• 3
  Combining regenerative rehabilitation with stem cell therapy shows limited effects on fibrotic and glial scarring in the chronic phase, indicating a need for further combinatorial treatments like medication.