In vivo and in vitro models of traumatic injuries of the spinal cord

Abstract

In recent years, there is a growing interest in the mechanisms of regeneration of damaged nerve tissue, including the spinal cord, as its injuries are quite common due to traffic accidents, industrial injuries and military actions. Damage to the spinal cord results in the loss of functional activity of the body below the injury site, which affects person’s ability to self-service and significantly reduces its efficiency. The effects of spinal injuries annually cause significant social and economic losses worldwide, including Ukraine. The development of new treatments for pathologies of the central nervous system requires mandatory pre-testing of their effectiveness in experiments in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, searching and creation of optimal animal model of spinal cord injury is in order to it meets most complete picture of the damage characteristic of real conditions in humans. This is an important task of modern neurophysiology. Such models can be used, primarily, for a more detailed clarification of the pathogenesis of all levels of nerve tissue damage and research of its own recovery potential by endogenous reparation mechanisms. In addition, experimental models allow to estimate the safety and predict the effectiveness of various therapeutic approaches to spinal cord injury.