Neurodegenerative disorders have become the leading cause of chronic pain and death. Treatments available are not sufficient to help the patients as they only alleviate the symptoms and not the cause. In this regard, stem cells therapy has emerged as an upcoming option for the replacement of dead and damaged neurons. Stem cells, in general, are characterized as cells exhibiting potency properties, i.e., on being subjected to specific conditions they transform into cells of another lineage. Of all the types, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are known for their pluripotent nature without the obstacle of ethical concern surrounding the procurement of other cell types. Although fibroblasts are quite similar to MSCs morphologically, certain markers like CD73, CD 90 are specific to MSCs, making both the cell types distinguishable from each other. This is implemented while procuring MSCs from a plethora of sources like umbilical cord blood, adipose tissue, bone marrow, etc. Among these, bone marrow MSCs are the most widely used type for neural regeneration. Neural regeneration is achieved via transdifferentiation. Several studies have either transplanted the stem cells into rodent models or have carried out transdifferentiation in vitro. The process involves a combination of growth factors, pre-treatment factors, and neuronal differentiation inducing mediums. The results obtained are characterized by neuron-like morphology, expression of markers, along with electrophysical activity in some. Recent attempts involve exploring biomaterials that may mimic the native ECM and therefore can be directly introduced at the site of interest. The review gives a brief description of MSCs, their sources and markers, and the different attempts that have been made towards achieving the goal of differentiating MSCs into neurons.

神经退行性疾病已成为慢性疼痛和死亡的主要原因。现有的治疗方法不足以帮助患者，因为它们只能缓解症状而不是病因。在这方面，干细胞疗法已成为替代死亡和受损神经元的一种即将到来的选择。干细胞通常被表征为表现出效力特性的细胞，即，在经受特定条件时，它们转化为另一谱系的细胞。在所有类型中，间充质干细胞 (MSC) 以其多能性而著称，而没有围绕采购其他细胞类型的伦理问题。尽管成纤维细胞在形态学上与 MSC 非常相似，但某些标记物（如 CD73、CD 90）是 MSC 特有的，这使得这两种细胞类型可以相互区分。这是在从脐带血、脂肪组织、骨髓等多种来源采购 MSC 时实施的。其中，骨髓 MSC 是最广泛用于神经再生的类型。神经再生是通过转分化实现的。几项研究要么将干细胞移植到啮齿动物模型中，要么在体外进行了转分化。该过程涉及生长因子、预处理因子和神经元分化诱导培养基的组合。获得的结果的特征在于神经元样形态、标记物的表达以及一些中的电物理活动。最近的尝试涉及探索可能模仿天然 ECM 的生物材料，因此可以直接在感兴趣的部位引入。该综述简要描述了 MSC，