Spinal cord injury. Review of basic and applied research.

This review examines, in a condensed manner, many of the major achievements related to spinal cord injury research during the last quarter century. Most of the advances have been made within the past 10 years. They include such basic and clinical tools as evoked potentials, regional and local spinal blood flows, neurophysiologic monitoring systems, and methods that detail the morphology and contents of cord tissue. Much of the experimentation conducted within the last 25 years has provided a better understanding and clinical therapeutic approach to the injured spinal cord than at any time before. Such work has exposed significant aspects in the biochemistry and vascular mechanics associated with trauma to the cord. A growing and intriguing area of spinal injury research lies in probing the factors related to neuronal plasticity and regeneration of the cord tissue. This review also examines the role of experimental animal models as well as the clinical and experimental therapies available for acute and chronic spinal cord injury.