title: A novel porcine model of traumatic thoracic spinal cord injury.
abstract: Spinal cord injury (SCI) researchers have predominately utilized rodents and mice for in vivo SCI modeling and experimentation. From these small animal models have come many insights into the biology of SCI, and a growing number of novel treatments that promote behavioral recovery. It has, however, been difficult to demonstrate the efficacy of such treatments in human clinical trials. A large animal SCI model that is an intermediary between rodent and human SCI may be a valuable translational research resource for pre-clinically evaluating novel therapies, prior to embarking upon lengthy and expensive clinical trials. Here, we describe the development of such a large animal model. A thoracic spinal cord injury at T10/11 was induced in Yucatan miniature pigs (20-25 kg) using a weight drop device. Varying degrees of injury severity were induced by altering the height of the weight drop (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 cm). Behavioral recovery over 12 weeks was measured using a newly developed Porcine Thoracic Injury Behavior Scale (PTIBS). This scale distinguished locomotor recovery among animals of different injury severities, with strong intra-observer and inter-observer reliability. Histological analysis of the spinal cords 12 weeks post-injury revealed that animals with the more biomechanically severe injuries had less spared white matter and gray matter and less neurofilament immunoreactivity. Additionally, the PTIBS scores correlated strongly with the extent of tissue sparing through the epicenter of injury. This large animal model of SCI may represent a useful intermediary in the testing of novel pharmacological treatments and cell transplantation strategies.
authors: International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada .
authors: Jae H T
authors: JH
authors: Lee
authors: Claire F
authors: CF
authors: Jones
authors: Elena B
authors: EB
authors: Okon
authors: Lisa
authors: L
authors: Anderson
authors: Seth
authors: S
authors: Tigchelaar
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: Kooner
authors: Tamara
authors: T
authors: Godbey
authors: Bev
authors: B
authors: Chua
authors: Gordon
authors: G
authors: Gray
authors: Rhonda
authors: R
authors: Hildebrandt
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Cripton
authors: Wolfram
authors: W
authors: Tetzlaff
authors: Brian K
authors: BK
authors: Kwon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D020127:Recovery of Function; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries; D013552:Swine; D013904:Thoracic Vertebrae