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 spinal nerves originating in the upper lumbar region. Within the CNS, nerve cell bodies are generally organized into functional clusters, called nuclei. Axons within the CNS are grouped into tracts. There are 31 spinal cord nerve segments in a human spinal cord: In the fetus, vertebral segments correspond with spinal cord segments. However, because the vertebral column grows longer than the spinal cord, spinal cord segments do not correspond to vertebral segments in the adult, particularly in the lower spinal cord. For example, lumbar and sacral spinal cord segments are found between vertebral levels T9 and L2, and the spinal