@ARTICLE{10.3389/fncel.2018.00296, AUTHOR={Fernández-García, Laura and Pérez-Rigueiro, José and Martinez-Murillo, Ricardo and Panetsos, Fivos and Ramos, Milagros and Guinea, Gustavo V. and González-Nieto, Daniel}, TITLE={Cortical Reshaping and Functional Recovery Induced by Silk Fibroin Hydrogels-Encapsulated Stem Cells Implanted in Stroke Animals}, JOURNAL={Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience}, VOLUME={12}, YEAR={2018}, URL={https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2018.00296}, DOI={10.3389/fncel.2018.00296}, ISSN={1662-5102}, ABSTRACT={The restitution of damaged circuitry and functional remodeling of peri-injured areas constitute two main mechanisms for sustaining recovery of the brain after stroke. In this study, a silk fibroin-based biomaterial efficiently supports the survival of intracerebrally implanted mesenchymal stem cells (mSCs) and increases functional outcomes over time in a model of cortical stroke that affects the forepaw sensory and motor representations. We show that the functional mechanisms underlying recovery are related to a substantial preservation of cortical tissue in the first days after mSCs-polymer implantation, followed by delayed cortical plasticity that involved a progressive functional disconnection between the forepaw sensory (FLs1) and caudal motor (cFLm1) representations and an emergent sensory activity in peri-lesional areas belonging to cFLm1. Our results provide evidence that mSCs integrated into silk fibroin hydrogels attenuate the cerebral damage after brain infarction inducing a delayed cortical plasticity in the peri-lesional tissue, this later a functional change described during spontaneous or training rehabilitation-induced recovery. This study shows that brain remapping and sustained recovery were experimentally favored using a stem cell-biomaterial-based approach.} }