title: Electrical stimulation modulates injury potentials in rats after spinal cord injury.
abstract: An injury potential is the direct current potential difference between the site of spinal cord injury and the healthy nerves. Its initial amplitude is a significant indicator of the severity of spinal cord injury, and many cations, such as sodium and calcium, account for the major portion of injury potentials. This injury potential, as well as injury current, can be modulated by direct current field stimulation; however, the appropriate parameters of the electrical field are hard to define. In this paper, injury potential is used as a parameter to adjust the intensity of electrical stimulation. Injury potential could be modulated to slightly above 0 mV (as the anode-centered group) by placing the anodes at the site of the injured spinal cord and the cathodes at the rostral and caudal sections, or around -70 mV, which is resting membrane potential (as the cathode-centered group) by reversing the polarity of electrodes in the anode-centered group. In addition, rats receiving no electrical stimulation were used as the control group. Results showed that the absolute value of the injury potentials acquired after 30 minutes of electrical stimulation was higher than the control group rats and much lower than the initial absolute value, whether the anodes or the cathodes were placed at the site of injury. This phenomenon illustrates that by changing the polarity of the electrical field, electrical stimulation can effectively modulate the injury potentials in rats after spinal cord injury. This is also beneficial for the spontaneous repair of the cell membrane and the reduction of cation influx.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetism, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Guanghao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetism, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huo
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetism, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Aihua
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetism, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Changzhe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetism, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Spinal Surgery, Beijing Boai Hospital, China Rehabilitation Research Center, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100068, China.
authors.forename: Jinzhu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bai
keywords: cations; charge balance; electric parameters; electrical stimulation; electrode; grants-supported paper; injury potential; neural regeneration; neuroregeneration; resting membrane potential; spinal cord injury; stimulator