Featured Review Cellscience Reviews Vol.2 No.4 ISSN 1742-8130

Neurotrophin Treatments for Nerve Regeneration after Traumatic CNS Injury

Abstract

Trauma in the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) often leads to devastating clinical consequences without the prospects of complete functional recovery, usually due to the failure of spontaneous nerve regeneration. This failure could be attributed to both the absence of intrinsic regenerative potential and the inhospitable environment, including the lack of growth-supporting molecules and the presence of growth-inhibitory cues after traumatic injury. Neurotrophins (NTs) have emerged as promising extrinsic factors to augment nerve regeneration after injury. Substantial progress has been made in identifying the roles of NTs, in promoting nerve regeneration and functional recovery after injury.

NTs are a family of growth factors which have been found to be central for the development and functional maintenance of nervous system, participating in neurogenesis, neuronal survival, axonal growth, synaptogenesis and activity-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity, etc (Lu et al., 2005). Four members of the NT family have been identified in mammals: nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin 3 (NT3) and neurotrophin 4/5 (NT4/5) (Chao, 2003b).

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