The potential of mesenchymal stem cells for neural repair

Developing effective therapies for serious neurological insults remains a major challenge for biomedical research. Despite intense efforts, the ability to promote functional recovery after contusion injuries, ischemic insults, or the onset of neurodegenerative diseases in the brain and spinal cord remains very limited even while the need for such therapies is increasing with an aging population. Recent studies suggest that cellular therapies utilizing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) may provide a functional benefit in a wide range of neurological insults. MSCs derived from a variety of tissue sources have been therapeutically evaluated in animal models of stroke, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis. In each situation, treatment with MSCs results in substantial functional benefit and these pre-clinical studies have led to the initiation of a number of clinical trials worldwide in neural repair.