@article{marina2014combined,
  title = {Combined Treatment by Cotransplantation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Neural Progenitors with Exercise and Enriched Environment Housing in Mouse Spinal Cord Injury},
  author = {Boido Marina and Niapour Ali and Salehi Hossein and De Amicis Elena and Ghibaudi Matildeand Vercelli Alessandro},
  year = 2014,
  url = {https://ibimapublishing.com/articles/ASC/2014/284093/},
  journal = {Advances in Stem Cells},
  volume = 2014 (2014),
  pages = 22,
  doi = 10.5171/2014.284093,
  abstract = {Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to persistent functional impairment due to loss of neurons and glia, and to reduced axonal regeneration following trauma. Therefore SCI is an invalidating pathology, unfortunately without effective treatments. Here, we have tested, in a murine compression SCI model, the effect of exposure to enriched environment (EE) and spontaneous exercise combined to stem cell transplantation, all treatments generally known to exert cell survival and proliferation, synaptogenesis, angiogenesis, and to promote neuroprotection.
    
We report that cotransplantation of neural precursors and mesenchymal stem cells can induce: i) an anatomical recovery in terms of lesion volume reduction and white matter sparing, even though with limited effects on astrogliosis, and ii) locomotor function improvement (as shown by Basso Mouse Scale, foot-fault, hindlimb flexion and sensory tests). These positive effects are only partially boosted by the EE housing and exercise.
Interestingly we observed that both stem cell types can mutually influence their survival, proliferation and differentiation, and occasionally undergo cell fusion.
We have demonstrated that, among the described approaches, the stem cell use appears the more successful one, and that its combination with EE housing and exercise only generates limited advantages.},
  keywords = {Compression injury, stem cell therapy, neurotrophic factors, motor behavior.},
  note = Article ID: 284093
}