Neurological Disorders

Regenerative Therapy of the Central Nervous System

Abstract

Sam Vaknin*

The central nervous system (CNS) has a limited capacity to spontaneously regenerate following traumatic injury or disease, requiring innovative strategies to promote tissue and functional repair. Tissue regeneration strategies, like cell and/or drug delivery, have demonstrated promising leads to experimental animal models, but are difficult to translate clinically. The efficacy of cell therapy, which involves somatic cell transplantation into the CNS to exchange damaged tissue, has been limited thanks to low cell survival and integration upon transplantation, while delivery of therapeutic molecules to the CNS using conventional methods, like oral and intravenous administration, are limited by diffusion across the blood– brain/spinal cord-barrier. The use of biomaterials to market graft survival and integration also as localized and sustained delivery of biologics to CNS injury sites is actively being pursued. This review will highlight recent advances using biomaterials as cell- and drug-delivery vehicles for CNS repair