Research Progress of Single Traditional Chinese Medicine and Its Extract in Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is mostly caused by severe trauma,which often leads to motor,sensory,reflex and sphincter dysfunction from the injury plane.It is the main cause of paraplegia.With the development of transportation and industry in modern society,the incidence of SCI is increasing year by year,but there is still a lack of ideal treatment drugs.Therefore,finding effective,safe and reliable drug treatment for spinal cord injury is one of the hotspots in basic and clinical research.Traditional Chinese medicine（TCM）has the characteristics of cheapness and less side effects,and it has a long history to be used in clinical treatment of spinal cord injury. Recent studies have shown that some single TCM and their extracts can effectively alleviate or improve secondary spinal cord injury, such as local vascular dysfunction, inflammation, oxidative stress, cell apoptosis, axonal demyelination, glial scar formation, and confirm the scientific nature of their treatment of spinal cord injury.This paper summarized the mechanism of single TCM and its extracts in promoting the repair of spinal cord injury,including improving spinal cord edema,ischemia and hypoxia by regulating the expression of aquaporin-4（AQP-4）,hypoxia-inducing factor（HIF）-1α,and vascular endothelial growth factor（VEGF）,inhibiting inflammation by regulating tumor necrosis factor（TNF）-α,interleukin（IL）-1β,inhibiting anti-oxygen free radical damage and lipid peroxidation.Chemicals,inhibit neuronal apoptosis,promote nerve cell repair and regeneration,inhibit the formation of glial scars and other aspects to alleviate pathological damage of spinal cord and promote the recovery of nerve function. It shows that traditional Chinese medicine has unique advantages such as multi-target,multi-channel and multi- level.It has broad research prospects for treating SCI and improving prognosis.