The Potential of Curcumin in Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury

Table 1

Publications examining the stem/progenitor cell proliferative properties of curcumin. BrdU, bromodeoxyuridine; μM, micromolar.

Reference	Cell type	Animal type	Study design	Curcumin administration	Outcomes/results
Hucklenbroich et al. [23]	Fetal rat neural stem cells	Wistar rats	In vitro (in cell cultures) & in vivo (six control, three treated) examination of proliferation (BrdU immunofluorescence)	In culture medium at various concentrations (1–25 μM); intracerebroventricular injection in rats	Curcumin with increased proliferation in vitro at lower doses (1–6 μM), decrease at higher dose levels (12–25 μM); In vivo, curcumin induced increased proliferation, with majority of subsequent differentiation into neurons/neuroblasts
Son et al. [24]	Neural progenitor cells from Sprague-Dawley rat spinal cords	—	Examine cellular proliferation (MTS assay) between control (no curcumin) and curcumin at 6 different dose levels	In culture medium at 0.1, 0.5, 1, 10, 20, and 50 μM	Lower doses (0.1, 0.5, and 1 μM) increase proliferation; higher doses (10, 20, and 50 μM) decrease proliferation; potential mechanism via mitogen-associated protein kinase pathway