Functional recovery assessment of spinal cord contusion model in male rats without therapeutic interventions

Introduction: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most serious clinical diseases, which not only affects the patient's physical and mental status, but its effects will be spread to family and community. After severe spinal cord injury, astrocytes of the central nervous system (CNS) become reactive astrocytes, and play the main role of glial scar formation. The scar is a major obstacle to regeneration of axons in the spinal cord. However, the studies have found that over time, a spontaneous partial motor recovery is observed in animals with injury without intervention. Thus, in this study, the recovery of animals with spinal cord injury was assessed after 12 weeks. Materials and methods: In this study, 12 adult male Wistar rats weighing approximately 265±15gr were used to assess spinal cord injury and randomly divided into 3 groups: normal control (n = 3), sham (n = 3), injury (n = 6). Healthy animals in the normal control group received no laminectomy or injury, and laminectomy with or without contusion model using weight drop in segment T10 of spinal cord were carried out in injury and sham groups, respectively. Locomotor function of animals in all groups were evaluated by BBB test at the first 48 hours per day and then weekly for 12 weeks. Results: Comparison of the results of motor evaluation from the second week to the twelfth week of the group with injury without treatment showed a relative functional recovery as the BBB score of animals from 1.4 in the second week after the injury reached to 6.5 in the twelfth week. Conclusion: The results indicate a spontaneous partial recovery in injured animals without intervention.