Spinal Cord Injury Victims May Benefit from Stem Cell Transplantation Studies

October 15, 2014

(Medical Xpress) – Two studies recently published in Cell Transplantation reveal that cell transplantation may be an effective treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI), a major cause of disability and paralysis with no current restorative therapies. Using laboratory rats modeled with SCI, researchers in Spain found in laboratory tests on cells harvested from rats – specifically ependymal progenitor cells (epSPCs), multipotent stem cells found in adult tissues surrounding the ependymal canal of the spinal cord – responded to a variety of compounds through the activation of purinergic receptors P2X4, P2X7, P2Y1 and P2Y4.