Spinal cord injury (SCI) is an injurious process that begins with immediate physical damage to the spinal cord and associated tissues during an acute traumatic event. However, the tissue damage expands in both intensity and volume in the subsequent subacute phase. At this stage, numerous events exacerbate the pathological condition, and therein lies the main cause of post-traumatic neural degeneration, which then ends with the chronic phase. In recent years, therapeutic interventions addressing different neurodegenerative mechanisms have been proposed, but have met with limited success when translated into clinical settings. The underlying reasons for this are that the pathogenesis of SCI is a continued multifactorial disease, and the treatment of only one factor is not sufficient to curb neural degeneration and resulting paralysis. Recent advances have led to the development of biomaterials aiming to promote in situ combinatorial strategies using drugs/biomolecules to achieve a maximized multitarget approach. This review provides an overview of single and combinatorial regenerative-factor-based treatments as well as potential delivery options to treat SCIs.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that can cause significant motor and sensory impairment. Microglia, the central nervous system's immune sentinels, are known to be promising therapeutic targets in both SCI and neurodegenerative diseases. The most effective way to deliver medications and control microglial inflammation is through nanovectors; however, because of the variability in microglial morphology and the lack of standardized techniques, it is still difficult to precisely measure their activation in preclinical models. This problem is especially important in SCI, where the intricacy of the glia response following traumatic events necessitates the use of a sophisticated method to automatically discern between various microglial cell activation states that vary over time and space as the secondary injury progresses. We address this issue by proposing a deep learning-based technique for quantifying microglial activation following drug-loaded nanovector treatment in a preclinical SCI model. Our method uses a convolutional neural network to segment and classify microglia based on morphological characteristics. Our approach's accuracy and efficiency are demonstrated through evaluation on a collection of histology pictures from injured and intact spinal cords. This robust computational technique has potential for analyzing microglial activation across various neuropathologies and demonstrating the usefulness of nanovectors in modifying microglia in SCI and other neurological disorders. It has the ability to speed development in this crucial sector by providing a standardized and objective way to compare therapeutic options.