A team from the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid (ICMM-CSIC), in collaboration with researchers from the National Hospital of Paraplegics, achieved a reconnection of a completely severed spinal cord at the thoracic level in a rat model using a three-dimensional foam created with reduced graphene oxide. The findings were published in the journal Bioactive Materials, demonstrating the potential of reduced graphene oxide for the treatment of spinal cord injuries, according to Agencia SINC.
"Our team had already demonstrated that these foams generate a pro-reparative environment in the rat spinal cord, but we wanted to do it by increasing the size of the lesion and changing the spinal level, and we managed to replicate the results," said Conchi Serrano, a researcher at ICMM-CSIC and one of the principal authors of the work, according to El Faro de Vigo. Serrano has been working on reduced graphene oxide for neural regeneration applications for more than a decade, as reported by La Razón.
The ICMM-CSIC group prepared a foam called scaffold with reduced graphene oxide using a thermal treatment at 220 degrees Celsius to eliminate excess oxygen groups and increase the chemical bonds between sheets, achieving greater mechanical stability. "A thermal treatment is applied at 220 degrees Celsius to eliminate excess oxygen groups and increase the chemical bonds between sheets, achieving greater mechanical stability," added Serrano.
When the graphene foam scaffold is placed in the spinal cord of a rat model with a completely severed spinal cord at the thoracic level, "a large number of blood vessels appear, which are fundamental to nourish the new tissue, and neurites, the filaments that connect one neuron to another," said Serrano.
Serrano explained the researchers observed "how the neurons that have survived in the area around the injury project their extensions through the scaffold and invade it throughout its three-dimensional extent." The improvement in tissue regeneration is temporal: the results are initial after ten days of implantation but are much more evident at four months, with enhancements continuing over time.
The research team carried out electrophysiological recordings to observe the response of the brain when the spinal cord is stimulated below the damaged area. "We recorded a response in the brain, confirming not only that there is neural tissue crossing the scaffold but that it reconnects with the brain," said Serrano.
According to the authors, when a spinal cord injury occurs, it is not usually completely severed; injuries typically affect only a specific part at one or several levels of the spinal cord.
This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq