Clinical Achievements, Obstacles, Falsehoods, and Future Directions of Cell-Based Neurorestoratology

Abstract

Neurorestoratology is a newborn and emerging distinct discipline in the neuroscience family. Its establishment will definitely speed up the advance of this promising frontier realm. A worldwide association for Neurorestoratology and several official journals covering this discipline have recently been set up. Clinical practice has demonstrated that the sequelae of damages and diseases of the CNS can be functionally restored to some degree. Obstacles that hinder the promising methods of Neurorestoratology to be translated from the bench to the bedside include political, governmental, religious, ethical, economic, and scientific factors or in most instances they work in combination. Falsehoods against the recognition of neurorestoratology include: 1) no therapeutic method is currently available that suggests that it is possible to repair, even partially, neurological functions; 2) according to the media, a cure will be very soon found for patients with severe spinal cord injury, brain trauma, and progressively deteriorated CNS degenerative diseases; 3) randomizing double blind control designed studies are the only gold standard for clinical study; self-comparison designed studies should be ignored and neglected. Future directions for neurorestoratology include the comparison and integration of current and upcoming available neurorestoration methods to look for the optimization regimes, and edit and publish clinical neurorestoratology treatment guidelines.

G-CSF as an Adjunctive Therapy with Umbilical Cord Blood Cell Transplantation for Traumatic Brain Injury

“…A major component of regenerative medicine is stem cell-based therapeutics, which have shown promising therapeutic potential for various types of neurological disorders, including TBI (e.g., 57,58,62,109,130), and have reached limited clinical trials [for review see (43)]. Translating cell therapy for treatment of brain diseases to the clinic has involved testing the safety, efficacy, and mechanisms of action of a variety of transplantable donor cells, including fetal stem cells, cancer-derived neuron-like cells, embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, and adult stem cells, such as umbilical cord blood, bone marrow stromal cells, amnion cells, among others (16,57,58,62,63,74,75,84,87,90,109,130).…”

Progress and challenges with clinical cell therapy in neurorestoratology

“…1,2 Many studies have focused on the mechanisms of functional restoration by cell therapies, including neuromodulation or unmasking and signaling repair by changing the microenvironment, neuroprotection by neurotrophins and immune or inflammatory modulation, neuroplasticity or neural circuit, network reconstruction and neurosynapsis, axonal remyelination or neurorepair, axon sprouting and regeneration, neuroreplacement, neurogenesis, and angiogenesis. [1][2][3] With developments in this field, some misunderstandings have arisen and had a detrimental effect on the development of neurorestoratology. 3 To correct these misconceptions is a challenge.…”

“…[1][2][3] With developments in this field, some misunderstandings have arisen and had a detrimental effect on the development of neurorestoratology. 3 To correct these misconceptions is a challenge. This review briefly summarizes the clinical progress made in neurorestoratology and the ongoing challenges associated with cell therapy.…”

Developmental history of neurorestoratology

“…In support of these published works as listed above and our own data, we firstly proposed a CNS neurorestorable theory; that is, neurological functions are able to be restored in degenerative diseases and sequela of damage in the CNS. 10,34,36,52,57 Neurostimulation/neuromodulation and neuroprosthesis…”

“…All of them share a common connotation for neural functional recovery though they display in different appearance. 10 …”