scholarly journals Full Anatomical Recovery of the Dopaminergic System after a Complete Spinal Cord Injury in Lampreys

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blanca Fernández-López ◽  
Daniel Romaus-Sanjurjo ◽  
María Eugenia Cornide-Petronio ◽  
Sonia Gómez-Fernández ◽  
Antón Barreiro-Iglesias ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Dopaminergic System ◽  
Spinal Injury ◽  
D2 Receptor ◽  
Dopaminergic Cell ◽  
Dopaminergic Cells ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
Complete Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
The Brain

Following a spinal injury, lampreys at first are paralyzed below the level of transection. However, they recover locomotion after several weeks, and this is accompanied by the regeneration of descending axons from the brain and the production of new neurons in the spinal cord. Here, we aimed to analyse the changes in the dopaminergic system of the sea lamprey after a complete spinal transection by studying the changes in dopaminergic cell numbers and dopaminergic innervation in the spinal cord. Changes in the expression of the D2 receptor were also studied. We report the full anatomical regeneration of the dopaminergic system after an initial decrease in the number of dopaminergic cells and fibres. Numbers of dopaminergic cells were recovered rostrally and caudally to the site of injury. Quantification of dopaminergic profiles revealed the full recovery of the dopaminergic innervation of the spinal cord rostral and caudal to the site of injury. Interestingly, no changes in the expression of the D2 receptor were observed at time points in which a reduced dopaminergic innervation of the spinal cord was observed. Our observations reveal that in lampreys a spinal cord injury is followed by the full anatomical recovery of the dopaminergic system.

scholarly journals Neurological recovery after surgical intervention of a complete spinal cord injury secondary to a chronic untreated odontoid neck fracture: a lesson in patient prognostication

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. e233077
Author(s):  
Patricio III Espinoza Dumlao ◽  
Samuel Grozman
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Spinal Injury ◽  
Neurological Deficits ◽  
Posterior Decompression ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
Neck Fracture ◽  
Complete Spinal Cord Injury

Odontoid fractures are injuries that can either be benign or devastatingly progress to quadriplegia and significant morbidity and mortality. Management is not clear cut for patients who already present late and with severe neurological deficits. We present a case of a type 2 odontoid fracture with associated complete spinal cord injury (American Spinal Injury Association A) initially untreated for 3 months but was subsequently managed with posterior decompression, instrumentation and occipitocervical fusion. The patient fully recovered all deficits and is independent of activities of daily living.

scholarly journals Taurine promotes axonal regeneration after a complete spinal cord injury in lampreys

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sobrido-Cameán ◽  
Blanca Fernández-López ◽  
Natividad Pereiro ◽  
Anunciación Lafuente ◽  
María Celina Rodicio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Axonal Regeneration ◽  
Axon Regeneration ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Axonal Regrowth ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
Taurine Treatment ◽  
Complete Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
The Brain

AbstractTaurine is one of the most abundant free amino acids in the brain. It is well known that taurine protects the brain from further damage after a traumatic event. However, only a few ex vivo studies have looked at the possible role of taurine in the regulation of axon regeneration after injury. Here, we aimed to reveal the possible role for taurine in the modulation of axonal regeneration following a complete spinal cord injury (SCI) using lampreys as an animal model. The brainstem of lampreys contains several individually identifiable descending neurons that differ greatly in their capacity for axonal regeneration after SCI. This offers a convenient model to promote or inhibit axonal regrowth in the same in vivo preparation. First, we carried out high performance liquid chromatography experiments to measure taurine levels in the spinal cord following SCI. Our results revealed a statistically significant increase in taurine levels 4 weeks post lesion, which suggested that taurine might have a positive effect on axonal regrowth. Based on these results, we decided to apply an acute taurine treatment at the site of injury to study its effect on axon regeneration. Results from these experiments show that an acute taurine treatment enhances axonal regeneration following SCI in lampreys. This offers a novel way to try to promote axon regeneration after nervous system injuries in mammalian models.

scholarly journals The Brain and Spinal Injury Center score: a novel, simple, and reproducible method for assessing the severity of acute cervical spinal cord injury with axial T2-weighted MRI findings

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason F. Talbott ◽  
William D. Whetstone ◽  
William J. Readdy ◽  
Adam R. Ferguson ◽  
Jacqueline C. Bresnahan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Prognostic Value ◽  
Spinal Injury ◽  
Neurological Symptoms ◽  
Axial Plane ◽  
Mri Findings ◽  
Signal Abnormality ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
The Brain

OBJECT Previous studies that have evaluated the prognostic value of abnormal changes in signals on T2-weighted MRI scans of an injured spinal cord have focused on the longitudinal extent of this signal abnormality in the sagittal plane. Although the transverse extent of injury and the degree of spared spinal cord white matter have been shown to be important for predicting outcomes in preclinical animal models of spinal cord injury (SCI), surprisingly little is known about the prognostic value of altered T2 relaxivity in humans in the axial plane. METHODS The authors undertook a retrospective chart review of 60 patients who met the inclusion criteria of this study and presented to the authors’ Level I trauma center with an acute blunt traumatic cervical SCI. Within 48 hours of admission, all patients underwent MRI examination, which included axial and sagittal T2 images. Neurological symptoms, evaluated with the grades according to the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (AIS), at the time of admission and at hospital discharge were correlated with MRI findings. Five distinct patterns of intramedullary spinal cord T2 signal abnormality were defined in the axial plane at the injury epicenter. These patterns were assigned ordinal values ranging from 0 to 4, referred to as the Brain and Spinal Injury Center (BASIC) scores, which encompassed the spectrum of SCI severity. RESULTS The BASIC score strongly correlated with neurological symptoms at the time of both hospital admission and discharge. It also distinguished patients initially presenting with complete injury who improved by at least one AIS grade by the time of discharge from those whose injury did not improve. The authors’ proposed score was rapid to apply and showed excellent interrater reliability. CONCLUSIONS The authors describe a novel 5-point ordinal MRI score for classifying acute SCIs on the basis of axial T2-weighted imaging. The proposed BASIC score stratifies the SCIs according to the extent of transverse T2 signal abnormality during the acute phase of the injury. The new score improves on current MRI-based prognostic descriptions for SCI by reflecting functionally and anatomically significant patterns of intramedullary T2 signal abnormality in the axial plane.

scholarly journals Transneuronal delivery of designer-cytokine enables functional recovery after complete spinal cord injury

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Leibinger ◽  
Charlotte Zeitler ◽  
Philipp Gobrecht ◽  
Anastasia Andreadaki ◽  
Dietmar Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Brain Stem ◽  
Functional Recovery ◽  
Spinal Cord Regeneration ◽  
Serotonergic Neurons ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
Functional Regeneration ◽  
Complete Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
The Brain

AbstractSpinal cord injury (SCI) often causes severe and permanent disabilities. The current study uses a transneuronal approach to stimulate spinal cord regeneration by AAV-hyper-IL-6 (hIL-6) application after injury. While preinjury PTEN knockout in cortical motoneurons fails to improve functional recovery after complete spinal cord crush, a single, postinjury injection of hIL-6 into the sensorimotor cortex markedly promotes axon regeneration in the corticospinal and, remarkably, raphespinal tracts enabling significant locomotion recovery of both hindlimbs. Moreover, transduced cortical motoneurons directly innervate serotonergic neurons in both sides of the raphe nuclei equally, enabling the synaptic release of hIL-6 and the transneuronal stimulation of raphe neurons in the brain stem. Functional recovery depends on the regeneration of serotonergic neurons as their degeneration induced by a toxin abolishes the hIL-6-mediated recovery. Thus, the transneuronal application of highly potent cytokines enables functional regeneration by stimulating neurons in the deep brain stem that are otherwise challenging to access, yet highly relevant for functional recovery after SCI.

scholarly journals Exercise Ameliorates Spinal Cord Injury by Changing DNA Methylation

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Ganchimeg Davaa ◽  
Jin Young Hong ◽  
Tae Uk Kim ◽  
Seong Jae Lee ◽  
Seo Young Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Functional Recovery ◽  
Treadmill Exercise ◽  
Exercise Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Epigenetic Changes ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
The Brain

Exercise training is a traditional method to maximize remaining function in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI), but the exact mechanism by which exercise promotes recovery after SCI has not been identified; whether exercise truly has a beneficial effect on SCI also remains unclear. Previously, we showed that epigenetic changes in the brain motor cortex occur after SCI and that a treatment leading to epigenetic modulation effectively promotes functional recovery after SCI. We aimed to determine how exercise induces functional improvement in rats subjected to SCI and whether epigenetic changes are engaged in the effects of exercise. A spinal cord contusion model was established in rats, which were then subjected to treadmill exercise for 12 weeks. We found that the size of the lesion cavity and the number of macrophages were decreased more in the exercise group than in the control group after 12 weeks of injury. Immunofluorescence and DNA dot blot analysis revealed that levels of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) in the brain motor cortex were increased after exercise. Accordingly, the expression of ten-eleven translocation (Tet) family members (Tet1, Tet2, and Tet3) in the brain motor cortex also elevated. However, no macrophage polarization was induced by exercise. Locomotor function, including Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan (BBB) and ladder scores, also improved in the exercise group compared to the control group. We concluded that treadmill exercise facilitates functional recovery in rats with SCI, and mechanistically epigenetic changes in the brain motor cortex may contribute to exercise-induced improvements.

Rehabilitation of the canine patient following spinal cord injury: a practical guide

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Cheryl Corral
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Spinal Cord Injury ◽  
Spinal Injury ◽  
Neurological Deficits ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
Cord Injury ◽  
Physical Therapies

This article forms part of a series exploring the rehabilitation of the canine shoulder, elbow, back, hip and stifle following injury or disease. Discussed here are different rehabilitation techniques used to address neurological deficits, pain and weakness following spinal injury, including physical therapies, electrotherapies and acupuncture.

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