In 1969 Geoffrey Raisman, who has died aged 77, introduced the term “plasticity” to describe the ability of damaged nerve tissue to form new synaptic connections. He discovered that damaged nerves in the central nervous system (CNS) could be repaired and developed the theory that white matter (nerve fibres and supporting cells) is like a pathway – when it is disrupted by injury, such as spinal cord injury, growth of the regenerating fibres is blocked.

In 1985 he described how olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) “open doors” for newly formed nerve fibres in the nose to enter the CNS. Believing that reconstruction of the damaged pathway is essential to repair of the injured CNS and using the unique door-opening capability of OECs, in 1997, together with colleagues, Geoffrey showed that transplantation of OECs into the damaged spinal cord in experimental models repairs the damaged pathway and results in the regeneration of severed nerve fibres and the restoration of lost functions.

The study led to a joint clinical trial with Pawel Tabakow and his team at Wroclaw Medical University, Poland. In 2014 the first patient with a complete severance of the thoracic spinal cord received transplantation of his own OECs. The operation enabled the patient, Darek Fidyka, to gain significant neurological recovery of sensation and voluntary movement. He can now get out of his wheelchair and ride a tricycle.

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The wider application of OECs has also been investigated. In 2012, with his team at University College London, collaborating with the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Southwest hospital, at the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, Geoffrey described the protective effect of OECs in an experimental glaucoma model. The discovery has led to a plan to translate this research to clinical application which, it is hoped, will help many sufferers regain sight.

Geoffrey was born into a Jewish family in Leeds. His father, Harry Raisman, was a tailor, one of 13 children of Lithuanian parents who came to Britain to escape the pogroms of late 19th-century eastern Europe. His mother, Celia Narunsky, was the only girl and eldest of six siblings. Both came from a deprived Jewish area of Leeds and saw education as the path to success and freedom. They strongly supported and encouraged Geoffrey in his learning from the earliest age.

He met his future wife, Vivien Margolin, when they were 16, and they married at the age of 18. Vivien gave up her undergraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh and found work in the Egyptian section of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Pivotal for her, she discovered a love of things Ancient Egyptian and is now a renowned scholar in her own right.

Geoffrey won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford, when he was 17. After his postgraduate studies he worked in the Department of Human Anatomy at Oxford between 1965 and 1974. He was one of the first scientists from the west to visit China in the 1980s after the cultural revolution ended, and continued to forge strong scientific links between the two countries for the rest of his career. He and his team moved to the National Institute for Medical Research, London, in 1974 and he became one of the youngest heads of its Division of Neurobiology.

In 2005, again with his team, he joined the Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation at the UCL Institute of Neurology, in order to translate the research work into a clinical application, and there he established a dedicated Spinal Repair Unit in Queen Square. He was professor of neural regeneration at UCL from 2005 and chair of neural regeneration from 2012.

Among many prizes and awards, Geoffrey was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2001 and awarded the Reeve-Irvine medal in 2005. He was made life president of the International Association of Neurorestoratology in 2010.

Geoffrey had many interests outside science, including art, music, literature, history and other cultures. He mastered many languages, among them both classical and modern Chinese. The breadth and extent of his knowledge made him a great companion and he was a favourite mentor for junior researchers and students.

He is survived by Vivien, and by their daughter, Ruth, and four grandchildren, Clare, Toby, Shona and Amy.

• Geoffrey Raisman, neuroscientist, born 28 June 1939; died 27 January 2017