A rat model for pituitary stalk electric lesion-induced central diabetes insipidus: application of 3D printing and further outcome assessments

A stable and reproducible rat injury model is not currently available to study central diabetes insipidus (CDI) and the neurohypophyseal system. In addition, a system is needed to assess the severity of CDI and measure the accompanying neurobiological alterations. In the present study, a 3D-printed lesion knife with a curved head was designed to fit into the stereotaxic instrument. The neuro-anatomical features of the brain injury were determined by in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) immunostaining on brain sections. Rats that underwent pituitary stalk electrical lesion (PEL) exhibited a tri-phasic pattern of CDI. MRI revealed that the hyperintenseT1-weighted signal of the pituitary stalk was interrupted, and the brain sections showed an enlarged end proximal to the injury site after PEL. In addition, the number of AVP-positive cells in supraoptic nucleus (SON) and paraventricular nucleus (PVN) decreased after PEL, which confirmed the success of the CDI model. Unlike hand-made tools, the 3D-printed lesion knives were stable and reproducible. Next, we used an ordinal clustering method for staging and the k-means’ clustering method to construct a CDI index to evaluate the severity and recovery of CDI that could be used in other multiple animals, even in clinical research. In conclusion, we established a standard PEL model with a 3D-printed knife tool and proposed a CDI index that will greatly facilitate further research on CDI.