Introduction: Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes constant irreversible functional deficits. Poor prognosis of such a disease prompts scientists to work on an effective way of treatment. Stem cell transplantation provides a promising strategy for such researchers. Using olfactory ensheathed cells (OECs) has, so far, indicated very good results. Hensce, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of transplanted OECs on functional recovery of delayed phase of SCI in rats.
 
Materials & Methods: In this survey, eighteen adult male wistar rats were divided into sham, control, vehicle, and treatment groups. Sham group received only laminectomy in the T9 segment of spinal cord, while in other groups, contusion model was induced following laminectomy.7 days  after  injury, DMEM medium alone or with OECs was injected to the vehicle and treatment groups, respectively. For cell culture, the olfactory mucosa of 7-day-old male wistar rats was used. Locomotor behavior of animals in all the groups was evaluated by BBB, (Basso, Bresnahan and Beattie) test.
 
Findings: Comparison of the results by the second week to the end of the study illustrated significant changing differences between the OECs receivers and the control group, (p< 0.05).
 
Discussion & Conclusion: Our investigation demonstrated a positive impact of the OECs on functional recovery in the delayed phase of SCI.