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Transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) are crystal nanomaterials with a number of surface functional groups such as fluorine, hydroxyl, and oxygen, which can be used as carriers for proteins and drugs. MXenes have excellent biocompatibility, electrical conductivity, surface hydrophilicity, mechanical properties and easy surface modification. However, at present, the stability of most MXenes needs to be improved, and more synthesis methods need to be explored. MXenes are good substrates for nerve cell regeneration and nerve reconstruction, which have broad application prospects in the repair of nervous system injury. Regarding the application of MXenes in neuroscience, mainly at the cellular level, the long-term in vivo biosafety and effects also need to be further explored. This review focuses on the progress of using MXenes in nerve regeneration over the last few years; discussing preparation of MXenes and their biocompatibility with different cells as well as the regulation by MXenes of nerve cell regeneration in two-dimensional and three-dimensional environments in vitro. MXenes have great potential in regulating the proliferation, differentiation, and maturation of nerve cells and in promoting regeneration and recovery after nerve injury. In addition, this review also presents the main challenges during optimization processes, such as the preparation of stable MXenes and long-term in vivo biosafety, and further discusses future directions in neural tissue engineering.

Spinal cord injury has long been a prominent challenge in the trauma repair process. Spinal cord injury is a research hotspot by virtue of its difficulty to treat and its escalating morbidity. Furthermore, spinal cord injury has a long period of disease progression and leads to complications that exert a lot of mental and economic pressure on patients. There are currently a large number of therapeutic strategies for treating spinal cord injury, which range from pharmacological and surgical methods to cell therapy and rehabilitation training. All of these strategies have positive effects in the course of spinal cord injury treatment. This review mainly discusses the problems regarding stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury, including the characteristics and action modes of all relevant cell types. Induced pluripotent stem cells, which represent a special kind of stem cell population, have gained impetus in cell therapy development because of a range of advantages. Induced pluripotent stem cells can be developed into the precursor cells of each neural cell type at the site of spinal cord injury, and have great potential for application in spinal cord injury therapy.

Damage to peripheral nerve tissue may cause loss of function in both the nerve and the targeted muscles it innervates. This study compared the repair capability of engineered nerve conduit (ENC), engineered fibroblast conduit (EFC), and autograft in a 10-mm tibial nerve gap. ENCs were fabricated utilizing primary fibroblasts and the nerve cells of rats on embryonic day 15 (E15). EFCs were fabricated utilizing primary fibroblasts only. Following a 12-week recovery, nerve repair was assessed by measuring contractile properties in the medial gastrocnemius muscle, distal motor nerve conduction velocity in the lateral gastrocnemius, and histology of muscle and nerve. The autografts, ENCs and EFCs reestablished 96%, 87% and 84% of native distal motor nerve conduction velocity in the lateral gastrocnemius, 100%, 44% and 44% of native specific force of medical gastrocnemius, and 63%, 61% and 67% of native medial gastrocnemius mass, respectively. Histology of the repaired nerve revealed large axons in the autograft, larger but fewer axons in the ENC repair, and many smaller axons in the EFC repair. Muscle histology revealed similar muscle fiber cross-sectional areas among autograft, ENC and EFC repairs. In conclusion, both ENCs and EFCs promoted nerve regeneration in a 10-mm tibial nerve gap repair, suggesting that the E15 rat nerve cells may not be necessary for nerve regeneration, and EFC alone can suffice for peripheral nerve injury repair.

Direct reprogramming of somatic cells into neurons or neural stem cells is one of the most important frontier fields in current neuroscience research. Without undergoing the pluripotency stage, induced neurons or induced neural stem cells are a safer and timelier manner resource in comparison to those derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. In this prospective, we review the recent advances in generation of induced neurons and induced neural stem cells in vitro and in vivo and their potential treatments of neurological disorders.

The article presents a study that evaluates the role of ischemic preconditioning in the reduction of ischemic brain injury through the suppression of nuclear factor kappa B expression and neuronal apoptosis. The study is undertaken through subjecting the mice on transient occlusion of the bilateral common carotid artery for 48 hours. The results of the study show that ischemic preconditioning plays a protective role against ischemic brain injury.

This article presents a study which investigated the use of uric acid for promoting proliferation and neuronal differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells derived from human placenta tissue. Researchers pre-induced human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells in the presence of various concentrations of uric acid for 24 hours. They discovered that uric acid accelerates differentiation of mesenchymal cells into neuronal-like cells in a time- and concentration-dependent manner.

The article present a study on conducting neural differentiation of human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hPMSCs) after neural cell co-culture. Chemical reagents have bee added into neural cells in order to induce hPMSCs to make differentiation. Neural cells from fetus were co-cultured for 48 hours with hPMSCs via Transwell co-culture system.

Prenatal alcohol exposure, especially during early pregnancy, can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome. The pharmacological and toxicological mechanisms of ethanol are related to the effects of ceramide. In this study, we established an alcohol exposure model in wild-type mice and in knockout mice for the key enzyme involved in ceramide metabolism, sphingomyelin synthase 2. This model received daily intragastric administration of 25% ethanol, and pups were used at postnatal days 0, 7, 14, 30 for experiments. Serology and immunofluorescence staining found that ethanol exposure dose-dependently reduced blood sphingomyelin levels in two genotypes of pups, and increased neural cell proliferation and the number of new neurons in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. Western blot analysis showed that the relative expression level of protein kinase C α increased in two notypes of pups after ethanol exposure. Compared with wild-type pups, the expression level of the important activator protein of the ceramide/ceramide-1-phosphate pathway, protein kinase C α, was reduced in the hippocampus of sphingomyelin synthase 2 knockouts. Our findings illustrate that ceramide is involved in alcohol-induced neural proliferation in the hippocampal dentate gyrus of pups after prenatal ethanol exposure, and the mechanism may be associated with increased pression of protein kinase C α activating the ceramide/ceramide-1-phosphate pathway.

From pregnancy to parturition, Sprague-Dawley rats were daily administered a low protein diet to establish a model of intrauterine growth restriction. From the 12(th) day of pregnancy, 300 mg/kg rine was daily added to food until spontaneous delivery occurred. Brain tissues from normal neonatal rats at 6 hours after delivery, neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction, and neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction undergoing taurine supplement were obtained for further experiments. The terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated biotin-16-dUTP nick-end labeling assay revealed that the number of apoptotic cells in the brain tissue of neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction significantly increased. Taurine supplement in pregnant rats reduced cell apoptosis in brain tissue from neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction. nohistochemical staining revealed that taurine supplement increased glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor expression and decreased caspase-3 expression in the cerebral cortex of intrauterine growth-restricted fetal rats. These results indicate that taurine supplement reduces cell apoptosis through the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor-caspase-3 signaling pathway, resulting in a protective effect on the intrauterine growth-restricted fetal rat brain.

Ischemic stroke induces a series of complex pathophysiological events including blood-brain barrier disruption, inflammatory response and neuronal apoptosis. Previous studies demonstrate that ischemic preconditioning attenuates ischemic brain damage via inhibiting blood-brain barrier disruption and the inflammatory response. Rats underwent transient (15 minutes) occlusion of the bilateral common carotid artery with 48 hours of reperfusion, and were subjected to permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion. This study explored whether ischemic preconditioning could reduce ischemic brain injury and relevant molecular mechanisms by inhibiting neuronal apoptosis. Results found that at 72 hours following cerebral ischemia, myeloperoxidase activity was enhanced, malondialdehyde levels increased, and neurological function was obviously damaged. Simultaneously, neuronal apoptosis increased, and nuclear factor-κB and cleaved caspase-3 expression was significantly increased in ischemic brain tissues. Ischemic preconditioning reduced the cerebral ischemia-induced inflammatory response, lipid peroxidation, and neurological function injury. In addition, ischemic preconditioning decreased nuclear factor-κB p65 and cleaved caspase-3 expression. These results suggested that ischemic preconditioning plays a protective effect against ischemic brain injury by suppressing the inflammatory response, reducing lipid peroxidation, and neuronal apoptosis via inhibition of nuclear factor-κB and cleaved caspase-3 expression.

Uric acid is an important, naturally occurring serum antioxidant. The present study investigates the use of uric acid for promoting proliferation and neuronal differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells derived from human placenta tissue. Human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells were pre-induced in the presence of either 0, 0.2, 0.4 or 0.8 mM uric acid in combination with 1 mM β-mercaptoethanol for 24 hours, followed by exposure to identical uric acid concentrations and 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol for 6 and 10 hours. Cells developed a neuronal-like morphology, with formation of interconnected process extensions, typical of neural cells. Immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence staining showed neuron specific enolase positive cells were present in each group except the control group. A greater number of neuron specific enolase positive cells were observed in 0.8 mM uric acid in combination with 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol at 10 hours. After 24 hours of induction, Nissl bodies were detected in the cytoplasm of all differentiated cell groups except the control group and Nissl body numbers were greatest in human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells grown in the presence of 0.8 mM uric acid and 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol. These results suggest uric acid accelerates differentiation of human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells into neuronal-like cells in a time- and concentration-dependent manner.