Chapter 5 Gray matter repair in the cervical spinal cord

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the concept of gray matter repair in the cervical spinal cord. With emphasis on gray matter repair in the injured spinal cord, the chapter reviews two separate areas of ongoing investigation. The first set of experiments concentrates on the phrenic motoneuron (PhMN) system as an experimental model for testing transplantation safety and efficacy, as well as for exploring possibilities for beneficially interfacing neuronal grafts with ongoing neuroplasticity. The objective is to gain a comprehensive view of functional neuroplasticity in the PhMN system and a perspective of how, at the segmental spinal level, the presence of novel neuronal populations, derived from primary fetal spinal cord tissue, affects spontaneous repair processes. The chapter also reviews the issue of defining alternative sources of donor tissue for gray matter repair. It describes the findings involving grafts of the neuronal precursor rich Ntera2 human cell line in chronic contusion lesions of the midcervical spinal cord. Both fetal tissue and the Ntera2 cell line provide important templates for the future experimental and clinical application of other neural and non-neural stem cell lines for neuronal replacement in the injured spinal cord, as well as other regions of the central nervous system (CNS).