The brain has a low renewable capacity for self-repair and generation of new functional neurons in the treatment of trauma, inflammation and cerebral diseases.

Cytotherapy is one option to regenerate the central nervous system that aims at replacing the functional depleted cells due to traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are also considered a candidate for cytotherapy because they can differentiate into neurons/nerve cells, pass across blood-brain barrier, migrate into the injured region, secrete neurotrophic factor, and provide microenvironment for neural regeneration.

Prof. Mohammad Ali Khalili, Research and Clinical Center for Infertility, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Iran and his team administered TBI rats 3-106 BMSCs via the tail vein and found that the BMSCs transplanted via the tail vein promoted nerve cell regeneration in injured cerebral cortex, which supplement the lost nerve cells.

Related results were published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 9, 2014).

Article: " Intravenous transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells promotes neural regeneration after traumatic brain injury" by Fatemeh Anbari1, Mohammad Ali Khalili1, Ahmad Reza Bahrami2, Arezoo Khoradmehr1, Fatemeh Sadeghian1, Farzaneh Fesahat1, Ali Nabi1 (1 Research and Clinical Center for Infertility, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran; 2 Institute of Biotechnology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran)

Anbari F, Khalili MA, Bahrami AR, Khoradmehr A, Sadeghian F, Fesahat F, Nabi A. Intravenous transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells promotes neural regeneration after traumatic brain injury. Neural Regen Res. 2014;9(9):919-923.