Multifunctional biomimetic spinal cord: New approach to repair spinal cord injuries

The incidence of spinal cord injury (SCI) has been gradually increasing, and the treatment has troubled the medical field all the time. Primary and secondary injuries ultimately lead to nerve impulse conduction block. Microglia and astrocytes excessively accumulate and proliferate to form the glial scar. At present, to reduce the effect of glial scar on nerve regeneration is a hot spot in the research on the treatment of SCI. According to the preliminary experiments, we would like to provide a new bionic spinal cord to reduce the negative effect of glial scar on nerve regeneration. In this hypothesis we designed a new scaffold that combine the common advantage of acellular scaffold of spinal cord and thermosensitive gel, which could continue to release exogenous basic fibroblast growth factor (BFGF) in the spinal lesion area on the basis of BFGF modified thermosensitive gel. Meanwhile, the porosity, pore size and material of the gray matter and white matter regions were distinguished by an isolation layer, so as to induce the directed differentiation of cells into the defect site and promote regeneration of spinal cord tissue.