Spinal cord injury is a serious injury of the nervous system.It results in higher disability and mortality.With the development of transportation and construction industry,the incidence of spinal cord injury is increasing year by year.Because the pathological and physiological mechanism of spinal cord injury is complex,the effect of treatment is bad and it brings heavy burden to the family and the society.In order to further understand the pathogenesis of spinal cord injury and improve the level of clinical treatment,it is necessary to develop the research of animal model of spinal cord injury.At present,there are various animal models,such as contusion model,compression model,ischemic injury model,transection injury model,distraction model and so on.As it is unable to precisely control the degree and range of spinal cord injury,no one can completely simulate the clinical pathogenesis of spinal cord injury.In order to study the pathogenesis of spinal cord injury and the methods of repairing,the animal model of spinal cord injury should have clinical similarity,repeatability and regulation.For providing the reference for choosing appropriate model and making the models more closed to the clinical pathogenesis of spinal cord injury,in this paper,the research progress of animal models of spinal cord injury is to be reviewed.