An effective treatment strategy for promotion of lower limb functional recovery in adult monkeys with spinal cord injury

Aimed to develop an effective approach for treating spinal cord injury (SCI) subjects in a nonhuman primate model, we used four monkeys which received unilateral surgical hemi-section at the T8 spine level (3-5 mm gap), and two of them, as treatments were further transplanted of 4 sural nerve segments as well as infused acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF) to injured spinal cord sites. Physical therapy and bipedal walking training on a treadmill were applied to promote the function recovery after surgery. A complex evaluation system including general observation in the home cage, behavioral test and clinic score system was used to assess the effect of the novel treatment strategy. The recovery of functional mobility in treated group is much faster as evidenced by their starting to move around in cage within a week and continued improvement in walking performance as measured by gait symmetry, while the control group developed spasticity and rigidity with a much slower and less functional recovery of mobility. All these results suggest that the treatment strategy of peripheral nerve grafting combined with aFGF is an effective method to treat SCI subjects.