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 injury research weeks after the initial insult and includes a number of cascading processes that further harm tissues already damaged by the primary injury. It results in formation of a glial scar, which impedes axonal growth. Animals used as SCI model organisms in research include mice, rats, cats, dogs, pigs, and non-human primates; the latter are close to humans but raise ethical concerns about primate experimentation. Special devices exist to deliver blows of specific, monitored force to the spinal cord of an experimental animal. Epidural cooling saddles, surgically placed over acutely traumatized spinal cord tissue, have been used to evaluate potentially beneficial