Khaing Zin Z, Geissler Sydney A, Schallert Timothy, Schmidt Christine E
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin.
J Vis Exp. 2013 Sep 16(79):e50955. doi: 10.3791/50955.
Cervical spinal cord injury (cSCI) can cause devastating neurological deficits, including impairment or loss of upper limb and hand function. A majority of the spinal cord injuries in humans occur at the cervical levels. Therefore, developing cervical injury models and developing relevant and sensitive behavioral tests is of great importance. Here we describe the use of a newly developed forelimb step-alternation test after cervical spinal cord injury in rats. In addition, we describe two behavioral tests that have not been used after spinal cord injury: a postural instability test (PIT), and a pasta-handling test. All three behavioral tests are highly sensitive to injury and are easy to use. Therefore, we feel that these behavioral tests can be instrumental in investigating therapeutic strategies after cSCI.
颈脊髓损伤（cSCI）可导致严重的神经功能缺损，包括上肢和手部功能受损或丧失。人类的大多数脊髓损伤发生在颈椎水平。因此，建立颈椎损伤模型并开发相关且敏感的行为测试至关重要。在此，我们描述了一种新开发的大鼠颈脊髓损伤后前肢交替迈步测试的应用。此外，我们还描述了两种脊髓损伤后未被使用过的行为测试：姿势不稳测试（PIT）和面食处理测试。这三种行为测试对损伤都高度敏感且易于使用。因此，我们认为这些行为测试有助于研究cSCI后的治疗策略。
