Neural stem cells as potential target cells for the treatment of neuropathic pain

Abstract

Nerve injury can lead to body dysfunction, especially the occurrence of neuropathic pain (NPP), which can seriously affect the quality of life of patients and bring pain. Therefore, the repair of nerve injury and the treatment of pain are particularly important. At present, some drugs and physiotherapy are used to relieve pain in clinic, but they have no fundamental repair therapeutic effect on the injured nerve and cannot reconstruct the function of neural network. Therefore, it is particularly important to explore foreground treatment. In recent years, great progress has been made in the treatment of nerve injury and pain by using functional active cells. The main advantage of using active cells in the treatment of nerve injury and pain is that it can repair the injured nerve, reconstruct the injured neural network and play to the pharmacological properties of analgesia. As a small pump with bioactivity, the functional mechanisms of neural stem cells (NSCs) in repairing nerve injury include neuroprotection, neuronutrition, nerve regeneration, immune regulation and improvement of inflammatory microenvironment of nerve injury. The functional role of NSCs in alleviating NPP lies in their mechanisms of repairing nerve damage, including downregulating the expression of pain related molecules. Therefore, in this paper, we discuss the function of NSCs in the repair of neural injury, and discuss the strategies of NSCs transplantation in the treatment of NPP and some problems that may need to be solved.