Hayley StentEvery year in New Zealand, there are around 141 new cases of spinal cord injury. Once damaged, the spinal cord is not able to heal properly, this is the reason why spinal cord injury is so serious. When these axons are severed, as they are in spinal cord injury, it is incredibly hard for them to reconnect. So I decided to find a way around this and started to look into other models of spinal cord injury. Although the use of this ex vivo model tantalises us with the promise of reduced animal testing, there are some issues with its ability to mimic a spinal cord injury that occurs in people.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 27, 2019 15:22 UTC