Strain-dependent recovery of spontaneous hindlimb movement in spinal cord transected mice (CD1, C57BL/6, BALB/c).
Reorganization and plasticity after spinal cord injury have been recently shown to take place in sublesional neuronal networks, but the possibility of strain-dependent changes at that level has never been explored. The authors studied the spontaneous return of hindlimb movement in low-thoracic spinal cord transected (Tx) mice from 3 commonly used strains. Without intervention, most CD1, C57BL/6, and BALB/c mice displayed some hindlimb movement recovery after Tx. Although all assessment methods unanimously reported that CD1 displayed higher recovery levels than did the C57BL/6 and BALB/c, higher scores were generally found with the Antri-Orsal-Barthe (M. Antri, D. Orsal, & J. Y. Barthe, 2002) and the Average Combined Score (P. A. Guertin, 2005a) methods. Such spontaneous recovery in low-thoracic Tx mice is likely the result of neuronal plasticity at the lumbosacral spinal cord level, suggesting that these sublesional changes are strain dependent.
Lapointe
Nicolas P
NP
Neuroscience Unit, Laval University Medical Center, Quebec City, PQ, Canada.
Ung
Roth-Visal
RV
Bergeron
Maxime
M
Cote
Martin
M
Guertin
Pierre A
PA
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000503:physiopathology*; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000502:physiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors