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Can Spinal Cords Repair Themselves?

Researchers at John Hopkins University say human nerve stem cells that are transplanted into damaged cord of rats have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats’ own spinal cord cells. The theory that the spinal cord is incapable of repairing itself is proved wrong.

“We don’t yet know whether the connections we’ve seen can transmit nerve signals to the degree that a rat could be made to walk again,” says Vassilis Koliatsos, M.D., associate professor of neuropathology at Johns Hopkins. “We’re still in the proof of concept stage, but we’re making progress and we’re encouraged.”

The scientists gave anesthetized rats a range of spinal cord injuries to lesion or kill motor neurons or performed sham surgeries in the experiments. They assorted the circumstances of the experiment to observe if the presence or absence of spinal cord lesions had an effect on the survival and maturation of human stem cell grafts. They injected human neural stem cells into the left side of each rat’s spinal cord two weeks after lesion or sham surgery.

It was found that more than three times the number of human cells they injected in the damaged cords, meaning the transplanted cells not only survived but divided at least twice to form more cells. The cells not only grew in the area around the original insertion, but also traveled over a much larger spinal cord area.

The researchers found that some of the transplanted cells developed into support cells rather than nerve cells, while the majority became mature nerve cells just three months after injection.

High-powered microscopic examination showed that these nerve cells appear to have made contact with the rat’s own spinal cord cells.


Christopher Davis at Davis Law Group, is a spinal cord injury attorney and has seen many life-changing accidents that have become from spinal cord injury. If you have been the victim of an accident that caused you spinal cord damage, call (206) 727-4000 for a free consultation.