Research advancements of axonal remyelination in spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injuries (SCI) usually result in impairment of axonal conduction and sensorimotor function. There are no effective therapy to completely repair SCI. Axonal demyelination is very common as a pathologic change in SCI, and demyelination partly contributes to neural function impairment. So, it may be reasonable that remyelination of demyelinated axons become one of effective therapeutic targets for SCI treatment.Demyelination involves myelin breakdown and loss of myelin-forming cells (oligodendrocytes). The death of oligodendrocytes plays a key role in axonal demyelination in SCI. Recently a number of studies demonstrate that cell replacements could facilitate axonal remyelination and restore axonal conductive function. Thus, it is expected that myelinogenetic cell transplantation (oligodendroglial lineage) will have good prospect as an effective therapy to improve axonal remyelination and restore neural function for SCI treatment in the near future.