Chapter 30 Recruiting the immune response to promote long distance axon regeneration after spinal cord injury

This chapter focuses on the ways in which the immune system can be recruited to neutralize myelin-associated inhibitors to promote long-distance axon regeneration after spinal cord injury. As mature central nervous system (CNS) neurons can regenerate their axons for long distances through peripheral nerve grafts, the early efforts to find the cause of the failure of axon regeneration in the CNS are focused on the cellular and molecular environment of the CNS through which axons have to regenerate. The inhibitors that damaged axons first encounter are likely to be those associated with myelin, which will be exposed immediately at the site of injury. The chapter shows that axons grow very rapidly across the lesion immediately after the hemisection in immunized mice. Axon regeneration failed in animals in which there were large scars at the site of hemisection. The chapter discusses regeneration also occurs if anti-myelin serum generated using similar immunization is administered to mice within 30 min after a spinal cord hemisection.