Prolonged acute intermittent hypoxia improves forelimb reach-to-grasp function in a rat model of chronic cervical spinal cord injury

Autor: Breanna M. Arnold, Behzad M. Toosi, Sally Caine, Gordon S. Mitchell, Gillian D. Muir
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Experimental Neurology. 340:113672
ISSN: 0014-4886
DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2021.113672
Popis: Repetitive acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH – brief, episodes of low inspired oxygen) elicits spinal motor plasticity, resulting in sustained improvements of respiratory and non-respiratory motor function in both animal models and humans with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI). We previously demonstrated that 7 days of AIH combined with task-specific training improves performance on a skilled locomotor task for at least 3 weeks post-treatment in rats with incomplete SCI. Here we investigated the effect of repetitive AIH administered for 12 wks on a forelimb reach-to-grasp task in a rat model of chronic, incomplete cervical SCI. In a replicated, sham-controlled, randomized and blinded study, male Spraque-Dawley rats were subject to partial hemisection at the 3rd cervical spinal segment, and exposed to daily AIH (10, 5 min episodes of 11% inspired O2; 5 min intervals of 21% O2) or sham normoxia (continuous 21% O2) for 7 days beginning 8 weeks post-injury. Treatments were then reduced to 4 daily treatments per week, and continued for 11 weeks. Performance on 2 pre-conditioned motor tasks, single pellet reaching and horizontal ladder walking, was recorded each week for up to 12 weeks after initiating treatment; performance on spontaneous adhesive removal was also tested. SCI significantly impaired reach-to-grasp task performance 8 weeks post-injury (pre-treatment). Daily AIH improved reaching success by the first week of treatment versus sham controls, and this difference was maintained at 12 weeks (p
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: