Unilateral Pyramidotomy of the Corticospinal Tract in Rats for Assessment of Neuroplasticity-inducing Therapies
| Autor: | Harold D Shine, Stephen B. McMahon, Claudia Kathe, Qin Chen, Lawrence D. F. Moon, Thomas H. Hutson |
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| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: |
Male
General Chemical Engineering Pyramidal Tracts General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology forelimb function Lesion Forelimb Animals Medicine Issue 94 Spinal Cord Injuries unilateral spinal cord injury Denervation Neuronal Plasticity Pyramidal tracts General Immunology and Microbiology business.industry General Neuroscience Anatomy corticospinal tract lesion Spinal cord Rats Disease Models Animal in vivo medicine.anatomical_structure pyramids Corticospinal tract Medulla oblongata central nervous system lesions Brainstem medicine.symptom business Brain Stem Neuroscience |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Visualized Experiments : JoVE |
| ISSN: | 1940-087X |
| DOI: | 10.3791/51843 |
| Popis: | The corticospinal tract (CST) can be completely severed unilaterally in the medullary pyramids of the rodent brainstem. The CST is a motor tract that has great importance for distal muscle control in humans and, to a lesser extent, in rodents. A unilateral cut of one pyramid results in loss of CST innervation of the spinal cord mainly on the contralateral side of the spinal cord leading to transient motor disability in the forelimbs and sustained loss of dexterity. Ipsilateral projections of the corticospinal tract are minor. We have refined our surgical method to increase the chances of lesion completeness. We describe postsurgical care. Deficits on the Montoya staircase pellet reaching test and the horizontal ladder test shown here are detected up to 8 weeks postinjury. Deficits on the cylinder rearing test are only detected transiently. Therefore, the cylinder test may only be suitable for detection of short term recovery. We show how, electrophysiologically and anatomically, one may assess lesions and plastic changes. We also describe how to analyse fibers from the uninjured CST sprouting across the midline into the deprived areas. It is challenging to obtain >90% complete lesions consistently due to the proximity to the basilar artery in the medulla oblongata and survival rates can be low. Alternative surgical approaches and behavioural testing are described in this protocol. The pyramidotomy model is a good tool for assessing neuroplasticity-inducing treatments, which increase sprouting of intact fibers after injury. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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