Emerging Strategies for Spinal Cord Injury: Cellular and Molecular Targets for SCI Repair and Recovery
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Neurobiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 33
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Approximately 17,000 individuals experience a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) each year in the US, with approximately 302,000 patients living with chronic SCI in the US alone and 15.4 million worldwide, as estimated by the World Health Organization. The current standard of care for SCI patients has been limited to decompression of the cord, administration of anti-inflammatory medications, pain control, supportive care, and physical rehabilitation. Although improvements in care have increased the life expectancies of SCI patients and improved the quality of life, there is a substantial unmet need for reducing disability. Recently, several novel treatments have emerged as potential therapies for mitigating disabilities of patients with acute or chronic SCI, including infusion or injection of MSC or MSC-derived exosomes or sEVs, Multilineage-differentiating stress-enduring (Muse), NOGO receptor decoy proteins, engineered nanoparticles, and electrical stimulation. Understanding the mechanisms of action of these potential treatments will be important for assessing how any such therapies might be implimented in clinical settings and for moving candidate treatments towards clinical trials. This Special Issue will consider the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of emerging treatment approaches for SCI, as well as potential targets for new treatments. Both research articles and timely reviews are welcome.
Dr. Karen L. Lankford
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- spinal cord injury
- chronic
- acute
- miRs
- mRNA
- inflamasome
- extracellular matrix
- integrins
- neurogenesis
- myelin
- sulphate proteoglycans (CSPG)
- myelin-derived inhibitors (MAIs)
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