Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.
J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Sciences Building, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Connect Tissue Res. 2024 Sep;65(5):407-420. doi: 10.1080/03008207.2024.2395287. Epub 2024 Sep 17.
Gait disturbances are common in human low back pain (LBP) patients, suggesting potential applicability to rodent LBP models. This study aims to assess the influence of disc-associated LBP on gait in female Sprague Dawley rats and explore the utility of the open-source Gait Analysis Instrumentation and Technology Optimized for Rodents (GAITOR) suite as a potential alternative tool for spontaneous pain assessment in a previously established LBP model.
Disc degeneration was surgically induced using a one-level disc scrape injury method, and microcomputed tomography was used to assess disc volume loss. After disc injury, axial hypersensitivity was evaluated using the grip strength assay, and an open field test was used to detect spontaneous pain-like behavior.
Results demonstrated that injured animals exhibit a significant loss in disc volume and reduced grip strength. Open field test did not detect significant differences in distance traveled between sham and injured animals. Concurrently, animals with injured discs did not display significant gait abnormalities in stance time imbalance, temporal symmetry, spatial symmetry, step width, stride length, and duty factor compared to sham. However, comparisons with reference values of normal gait reported in prior literature reveal that injured animals exhibit mild deviations in forelimb and hindlimb stance time imbalance, forelimb temporal symmetry, and hindlimb spatial symmetry at some time points.
This study concludes that the disc injury may have very mild effects on gait in female rats within 9 weeks post-injury and recommends future in depth dynamic gait analysis and longer studies beyond 9 weeks to potentially detect gait.
步态紊乱在人类下腰痛（LBP）患者中较为常见，这表明其可能适用于啮齿类动物的 LBP 模型。本研究旨在评估椎间盘相关性 LBP 对雌性 Sprague Dawley 大鼠步态的影响，并探讨开源步态分析仪器和技术优化（GAITOR）套件作为先前建立的 LBP 模型中自发性疼痛评估的潜在替代工具的适用性。
采用单节段椎间盘刮除损伤法诱导椎间盘退变，并用微计算机断层扫描评估椎间盘容积丧失。椎间盘损伤后，采用握力试验评估轴向过敏，并用旷场试验检测自发性疼痛样行为。
结果表明，损伤动物表现出明显的椎间盘容积丧失和握力下降。旷场试验未检测到假手术组和损伤组动物在行进距离上的显著差异。同时，与假手术组相比，损伤椎间盘的动物在支撑时间不平衡、时间对称性、空间对称性、步幅、步长和作用因子方面并未表现出明显的步态异常。然而，与先前文献中正常步态的参考值进行比较表明，损伤动物在某些时间点表现出轻微的前肢和后肢支撑时间不平衡、前肢时间对称性和后肢空间对称性的改变。
本研究得出结论，椎间盘损伤在损伤后 9 周内可能对雌性大鼠的步态产生非常轻微的影响，并建议未来进行更深入的动态步态分析和超过 9 周的研究，以潜在地检测步态。
