4.4 Article

A Murine Model of Cervical Spinal Cord Injury to Study Post-lesional Respiratory Neuroplasticity

Journal

Jove-Journal of Visualized Experiments
Volume -, Issue 87, Pages -

Publisher

JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
DOI: 10.3791/51235

Keywords

Physiology; Issue 87; rat; cervical spinal cord injury; respiratory deficit; crossed phrenic phenomenon; respiratory neuroplasticity

Funding

  1. European Union [246556]
  2. Chancellerie des Universites de Paris (Legs Poix)
  3. Fonds de Dotation Recherche en Sante Respiratoire
  4. Centre d'Assistance Respiratoire a Domicile d'lle de France (CARDIF)

Ask authors/readers for more resources

A cervical spinal cord injury induces permanent paralysis, and often leads to respiratory distress. To date, no efficient therapeutics have been developed to improve/ameliorate the respiratory failure following high cervical spinal cord injury (SCI). Here we propose a murine pre-clinical model of high SCI at the cervical 2 (C2) metameric level to study diverse post-lesional respiratory neuroplasticity. The technique consists of a surgical partial injury at the C2 level, which will induce a hemiparalysis of the diaphragm due to a deafferentation of the phrenic motoneurons from the respiratory centers located in the brainstem. The contralateral side of the injury remains intact and allows the animal recovery. Unlike other SCIs which affect the locomotor function (at the thoracic and lumbar level), the respiratory function does not require animal motivation and the quantification of the deficit/recovery can be easily performed (diaphragm and phrenic nerve recordings, whole body ventilation). This preclinical C2 SCI model is a powerful, useful, and reliable pre-clinical model to study various respiratory and non-respiratory neuroplasticity events at different levels (molecular to physiology) and to test diverse putative therapeutic strategies which might improve the respiration in SCI patients.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.4
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available