Grossman S D, Rosenberg L J, Wrathall J R
Department of Cell Biology, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, 3970 Reservoir Road, Washington, DC 20007, USA.
Exp Neurol. 2001 Apr;168(2):273-82. doi: 10.1006/exnr.2001.7628.
The secondary loss of neurons and glia over the first 24 h after spinal cord injury (SCI) contributes to the permanent functional deficits that are the unfortunate consequence of SCI. The progression of this acute secondary cell death in specific neuronal and glial populations has not previously been investigated in a quantitative manner. We used a well-characterized model of SCI to analyze the loss of ventral motoneurons (VMN) and ventral funicular astrocytes and oligodendrocytes at 15 min and 4, 8, and 24 h after an incomplete midthoracic contusion injury in the rat. We found that both the length of lesion and the length of spinal cord devoid of VMN increased in a time-dependent manner. The extent of VMN loss at specified distances rostral and caudal to the injury epicenter progressed symmetrically with time. Neuronal loss was accompanied by a loss of glial cells in ventral white matter that was significant at the epicenter by 4 h after injury. Oligodendrocyte loss followed the same temporal pattern as that of VMN while astrocyte loss was delayed. This information on the temporal-spatial pattern of cell loss can be used to investigate mechanisms involved in secondary injury of neurons and glia after SCI.
脊髓损伤（SCI）后最初24小时内神经元和神经胶质细胞的继发性损失，会导致永久性功能缺陷，这是SCI不幸的后果。此前尚未以定量方式研究特定神经元和神经胶质细胞群体中这种急性继发性细胞死亡的进展情况。我们使用一个特征明确的SCI模型，分析大鼠中胸段不完全挫伤性损伤后15分钟、4小时、8小时和24小时腹侧运动神经元（VMN）以及腹侧索星形胶质细胞和少突胶质细胞的损失情况。我们发现，损伤长度和无VMN的脊髓长度均呈时间依赖性增加。在损伤震中头侧和尾侧特定距离处的VMN损失程度随时间呈对称进展。神经元损失伴随着腹侧白质中神经胶质细胞的损失，损伤后4小时在震中处这种损失很明显。少突胶质细胞损失与VMN遵循相同的时间模式，而星形胶质细胞损失则延迟。这些关于细胞损失时空模式的信息可用于研究SCI后神经元和神经胶质细胞继发性损伤所涉及的机制。
