TY - JOUR
T1 - Hemisection spinal cord injury in rat
T2 - The value of intraoperative somatosensory evoked potential monitoring
AU - Cloud, Beth A.
AU - Ball, Bret G.
AU - Chen, Bingkun K.
AU - Knight, Andrew M.
AU - Hakim, Jeffrey S.
AU - Ortiz, Ana M.
AU - Windebank, Anthony J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was supported by the Shannon Foundation , the Neilsen Foundation , the Morton Cure Paralysis Fund and an NIH/NCRR CTSA Grant (Number UL1 RR024150 ). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors.
PY - 2012/11/15
Y1 - 2012/11/15
N2 - Techniques used to produce partial spinal cord injuries in animal models have the potential for creating variability in lesions. The amount of tissue affected may influence the functional outcomes assessed in the animals. The recording of somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) may be a valuable tool for assessing the extent of lesion applied in animal models of traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Intraoperative tibial SSEP recordings were assessed during surgically induced lateral thoracic hemisection SCI in Sprague-Dawley rats. The transmission of SSEPs, or lack thereof, was determined and compared against the integrity of the dorsal funiculi on each side of the spinal cord upon histological sectioning. An association was found between the presence of an SSEP signal and presence of intact dorsal funiculus tissue. The relative risk is 4.50 (95% confidence interval: 1.83-11.08) for having an intact dorsal funiculus when the ipsilateral SSEP was present compared to when it was absent. Additionally, the amount of spared spinal cord tissue correlates with final functional assessments at nine weeks post injury: BBB (linear regression, R2=0.618, p<0.001) and treadmill test (linear regression, R2=0.369, p=0.016). Therefore, we propose intraoperative SSEP monitoring as a valuable tool to assess extent of lesion and reduce variability between animals in experimental studies of SCI.
AB - Techniques used to produce partial spinal cord injuries in animal models have the potential for creating variability in lesions. The amount of tissue affected may influence the functional outcomes assessed in the animals. The recording of somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) may be a valuable tool for assessing the extent of lesion applied in animal models of traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Intraoperative tibial SSEP recordings were assessed during surgically induced lateral thoracic hemisection SCI in Sprague-Dawley rats. The transmission of SSEPs, or lack thereof, was determined and compared against the integrity of the dorsal funiculi on each side of the spinal cord upon histological sectioning. An association was found between the presence of an SSEP signal and presence of intact dorsal funiculus tissue. The relative risk is 4.50 (95% confidence interval: 1.83-11.08) for having an intact dorsal funiculus when the ipsilateral SSEP was present compared to when it was absent. Additionally, the amount of spared spinal cord tissue correlates with final functional assessments at nine weeks post injury: BBB (linear regression, R2=0.618, p<0.001) and treadmill test (linear regression, R2=0.369, p=0.016). Therefore, we propose intraoperative SSEP monitoring as a valuable tool to assess extent of lesion and reduce variability between animals in experimental studies of SCI.
KW - Electrophysiology
KW - Exercise
KW - Functional outcome
KW - Incomplete spinal cord injury
KW - Pathologic correlation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.08.024
DO - 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.08.024
M3 - Article
C2 - 22960163
AN - SCOPUS:84867124776
SN - 0165-0270
VL - 211
SP - 179
EP - 184
JO - Journal of Neuroscience Methods
JF - Journal of Neuroscience Methods
IS - 2
ER -