Spinal cord injury research triggering an immune system response. Animal studies with injection of bone marrow stem cells have shown improvement in motor function; however not so in a human trial a year post-injury. More trials are underway. Adipose and umbilical tissue stem cells need further study before human trials can be performed, but two Korean studies were begun to investigate adipose cells in SCI patients. Transplantation of tissues such as olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory bulbs has been shown to produce beneficial effects in spinal cord injured rats. Trials have also begun to show success when olfactory ensheathing cells are transplanted into
Spinal cord and Rita Levi-Montalcini in the chick embryo have been confirmed by more recent studies which have demonstrated that the elimination of neuronal cells by programmed cell death (PCD) is necessary for the correct assembly of the nervous system. Overall, spontaneous embryonic activity has been shown to play a role in neuron and muscle development but is probably not involved in the initial formation of connections between spinal neurons. The spinal cord is supplied with blood by three arteries that run along its length starting in the brain, and many arteries that approach it through the sides of the spinal column.