title: A murine model of cervical spinal cord injury to study post-lesional respiratory neuroplasticity.
abstract: A cervical spinal cord injury induces permanent paralysis, and often leads to respiratory distress. To date, no efficient therapeutics have been developed to improve/ameliorate the respiratory failure following high cervical spinal cord injury (SCI). Here we propose a murine pre-clinical model of high SCI at the cervical 2 (C2) metameric level to study diverse post-lesional respiratory neuroplasticity. The technique consists of a surgical partial injury at the C2 level, which will induce a hemiparalysis of the diaphragm due to a deafferentation of the phrenic motoneurons from the respiratory centers located in the brainstem. The contralateral side of the injury remains intact and allows the animal recovery. Unlike other SCIs which affect the locomotor function (at the thoracic and lumbar level), the respiratory function does not require animal motivation and the quantification of the deficit/recovery can be easily performed (diaphragm and phrenic nerve recordings, whole body ventilation). This pre-clinical C2 SCI model is a powerful, useful, and reliable pre-clinical model to study various respiratory and non-respiratory neuroplasticity events at different levels (molecular to physiology) and to test diverse putative therapeutic strategies which might improve the respiration in SCI patients.
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
authors.forename: Emilie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Keomani
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
authors.forename: Thérèse B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Deramaudt
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; Service de Physiologie - Explorations fonctionnelles, Hôpital Ambroise Paré
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petitjean
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; Service de Physiologie - Explorations fonctionnelles, Hôpital Ambroise Paré
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bonay
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; Services de Physiologie, Explorations Fonctionnelles, Réanimation Médicale et Centre d'Investigation Clinique et d'Innovation Technologique (Unité Inserm 805), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lofaso
authors.affiliation: UFR des sciences de la santé - Simone Veil, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; stephane.vinit@uvsq.fr.
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vinit
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012137:Respiratory System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*