Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai-Cho, Showa-Ku, Nagoya, 466-8550, Japan.
Department of Anatomy and Molecular Cell Biology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai-Cho, Showa-Ku, Nagoya, 466-8550, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2024 Aug 4;14(1):18031. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69127-7.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage or trauma to the spinal cord, which often results in loss of function, sensation, or mobility below the injury site. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive and affordable brain stimulation technique used to modulate neuronal circuits, which changes the morphology and activity of microglia in the cerebral cortex. However, whether similar morphological changes can be observed in the spinal cord remains unclear. Therefore, we evaluated neuronal population activity in layer 5 (L5) of M1 following SCI and investigated whether changes in the activities of L5 neurons affect microglia-axon interactions using C57BL/6J mice. We discovered that L5 of the primary motor cortex (corticospinal neurons) exhibited reduced synchronized activity after SCI that correlates with microglial morphology, which was recovered using tDCS. This indicates that tDCS promotes changes in the morphological properties and recovery of microglia after SCI. Combining immunotherapy with tDCS may be effective in treating SCI.
脊髓损伤 (SCI) 是脊髓的损伤或创伤，通常导致损伤部位以下的功能、感觉或运动丧失。经颅直流电刺激 (tDCS) 是一种非侵入性且经济实惠的脑刺激技术，用于调节神经元回路，从而改变大脑皮层中小胶质细胞的形态和活性。然而，脊髓中是否可以观察到类似的形态变化尚不清楚。因此，我们评估了 SCI 后 M1 层 5 (L5) 中的神经元群体活动，并研究了 L5 神经元活动的变化是否会影响小胶质细胞-轴突相互作用，使用 C57BL/6J 小鼠。我们发现，初级运动皮层的 L5（皮质脊髓神经元）在 SCI 后表现出同步活动减少，这与小胶质细胞形态相关，tDCS 可恢复这种同步活动。这表明 tDCS 促进了 SCI 后小胶质细胞形态和恢复的变化。将免疫疗法与 tDCS 相结合可能对治疗 SCI 有效。
