Advanced tissue engineering approaches in neurotrauma therapies

Due to the increasing annual incidence of neurotraumas, advanced tissue engineering approaches could represent the resolutive remedies for patients with strongly lesioned central nervous system and have a great repercussion in the public healthcare cost. Unfortunately the current clinical treatments in traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury show several limitations. While the clinical management of neurotraumas has been greatly improved in the last years with the development of standardized approaches to patient's care, numerous clinical trials have been unable to find a specific and effective medical treatment targeting neural regeneration promotion and in reducing mortality or limiting disability following trauma. Over the last decades, several therapies, coming from tissue engineering and nanotechnology, have demonstrated an unquestionable potential to regenerate damaged tissues and organs by using biomaterials capable of creating favourable microenvironments for tissue ingrowth. Tissue engineering approaches have great prospective also in virgin field like central nervous system regeneration, enhancing the restoration of functional neural circuitries and leading to recovery of lost sensorymotor and cognitive capabilities and emotional deficit.