Neurology, Addiction and Psychiatry Conference

Neuroregeneration is simply the process of improving, regenerating, or replacing damaged neurons and nerve cells within the nervous system. This is unique because other tissues within the human body have a minimal ability to regrow when damaged due to injury or disease. Thus, this research is critically important for patients with conditions such as spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as ALS.

Neuroregeneration is achievable in normal individuals because of neuroplasticity; the brain and nervous system will remodulate to cope with new information, damage, or experiences by creating new neural connections. But it is often not possible in the case of severe injury or neurodegenerative conditions. Therefore, research for regenerative therapies aimed at boosting or stimulating the natural process has picked speed recently.

Perhaps one of the most encouraging areas of neuroregeneration research is the use of neural stem cells. These versatile stem cells can generate many cell types, thus making them the ideal candidate for therapies targeting the replacement of damaged or dead neurons. Indeed, huge potential exists in animal models for stem cell therapies that will improve functional recovery after spinal cord injury or stroke. These therapies are currently under clinical trials in humans, and early results indicate promise in reversing conditions that doctors have traditionally believed were irreversible.

Another area of research is axon regeneration, in which damaged axons, or the long fibers carrying the electrical signals between neurons, are induced to grow. The regenerative therapies that stimulate axonal growth may be able to reactivate pathways of communication in the nervous system sufficiently to reverse paralysis or loss of motor function following an injury.

Other active research is on neuroregeneration, such as growth factors like NGF and BDNF. These are growth factors that help to support neuron survival and growth. This line of hope entails the possibility of directly delivering the growth factors to the site of injury to produce an environment that will support neuron regeneration and repair.

With much of this research still at its infancy stages, discovery in neuroregeneration has promising futures for medicine. Millions of patients from the spinal cord injuries to degenerative brain diseases will be able to have their lost functions restored through neuron regeneration.

In general, neuroregeneration is the area of research that concerns the recovery of lost or damage nerve functions as a result of injury or disease. Research and clinical work today set hope for the effective treatment in restoring nerve functions.