A new study suggests that the immune system’s capacity to react to spinal cord injuries declines as one ages, but it also highlights potential strategies to boost this response and facilitate patient recovery.
The new findings provide critical knowledge about the immune system’s reaction to spinal cord injuries, and why this reaction seems to weaken with age. They also underscore the significant contribution of the membranes encircling the spinal cord in initiating the immune response to such injuries. Armed with this knowledge, medical professionals may eventually be able to strengthen the body’s inherent immune response to enhance patient recovery, especially among the elderly population.
“Recently, it has been reported more aging individuals experience spinal cord injuries. Our findings suggest in aging, there is an impairment in how the immune response is initiated and resolved compared to young,” said researcher Andrea Francesca M. Salvador, who just received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. “Hopefully, our results can help identify points of intervention and druggable targets that can improve recovery and address long-term consequences of injury such as pain.”
