Table 1.

Comparison between primary and secondary spinal cord injury (SCI). Created based on information from [4,18,20,21,22,23].

Injury Type	Primary Injury	Secondary Injury
Comparison Criteria
Description	Mechanical disruption of the spinal cord during trauma	Rapidly escalating cascade of acute and chronic degenerative events
Cause	External force acting directly or indirectly on the spinal cord	Chemical and physical events created by the primary injury
Characteristics	Mechanical destruction of neural tissue Hemorrhage within the spinal cord Compression Laceration Transection	Oxidative stress Loss of mitochondrial homeostasis Ischemia Hypoxia Cellular damage Demyelination of axons Glial scar formation Disconnection of living neurons Inflammation Immune response