| Summary: | Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that causes its victims to experience functional deficits. Inflammation plays a complex role in the progression of SCI. While some inflammatory cells attenuate further damage to the spinal cord tissue, other inflammatory mediators exacerbate the damage. Attenuating the detrimental aspects of inflammation after SCI is an attractive neuroprotective strategy that could potentially lead to significant functional improvement. In this regard, intravenous immunoglobulin G (IgG), which has many proposed immuno-modulatory mechanisms, is a potential treatment candidate. In this study, we investigated the neuroprotective properties of IgG by examining its effects after SCI at the molecular, cellular, and neurobehavioral levels. We observed that IgG treatment after SCI is associated with significant reduction in pro-inflammatory mediators and significant improvement in neurobehavioral recovery compared to the control. The results of the study suggest that IgG could potentially be used as an immuno-modulatory therapy for SCI.
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