Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Spinal Cord Injury Therapies

For much of human history, clinicians have considered spinal cord injury (SCI) an incurable condition. Several millennia ago, an anonymous Egyptian physician wrote in the Edwin Smith Papyrus that water should be withheld from spinal-injured warriors (1). This pessimistic view has held sway. Until recently, the paucity of therapies for spinal cord injury did not pose a problem because most people did not survive long after injury. However, the advent of modern antibiotics, the ventilator, intermittent catheterization, and modern intensive care turned this situation around. By 1980, over 90% of people survived SCI.