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Brain Advance Access originally published online on March 13, 2009
Brain 2009 132(5):1268-1276; doi:10.1093/brain/awp030
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Restoration of hand function in a rat model of repair of brachial plexus injury

Ahmed G. Ibrahim1, Peter A. Kirkwood2, Geoffrey Raisman1 and Ying Li1

1 Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, Spinal Repair Unit, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK 2 Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK

Correspondence to: Professor Geoffrey Raisman, Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, Spinal Repair Unit, Institute of Neurology, UCL, Queen Square, WC1N 3BG London, UK E-mail: g.raisman{at}ion.ucl.ac.uk

The incurability of spinal cord injury and subcortical strokes is due to the inability of nerve fibres to regenerate. One of the clearest clinical situations where failure of regeneration leads to a permanent functional deficit is avulsion of the brachial plexus. In current practice, surgical re-implantation of avulsed spinal roots provides a degree of motor recovery, but the patients neither recover sensation nor the use of the hand. In the present rat study, we show that transplantation of cultured adult olfactory ensheathing cells restores the sensory input needed for a complex, goal-directed fore-paw function and re-establishes synaptic transmission to the spinal grey matter and cuneate nucleus by providing a bridge for regeneration of severed dorsal root fibres into the spinal cord. Success in a first application of human olfactory ensheathing cells in clinical brachial plexus injury would open the way to the wider field of brain and spinal cord injuries.

Key Words: dorsal horn; spinal cord; transplantation

Abbreviations: BD, biotin dextran; DR, dorsal root; GFP, green fluorescent protein; OEC, olfactory ensheathing cell

Received December 9, 2008. Revised January 21, 2009. Accepted January 30, 2009.


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