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Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

Previous studies suggest locomotion training could be an effective non-invasive therapy after spinal cord injury (SCI) using primarily acute thoracic injuries. However, the majority of SCI patients have chronic cervical injuries. Regaining hand function could significantly increase their quality of...

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Autores principales: Gallegos, Chrystine, Carey, Matthew, Zheng, Yiyan, He, Xiuquan, Cao, Qi Lin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266985/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32536855
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2020.00110
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author Gallegos, Chrystine
Carey, Matthew
Zheng, Yiyan
He, Xiuquan
Cao, Qi Lin
author_facet Gallegos, Chrystine
Carey, Matthew
Zheng, Yiyan
He, Xiuquan
Cao, Qi Lin
author_sort Gallegos, Chrystine
collection PubMed
description Previous studies suggest locomotion training could be an effective non-invasive therapy after spinal cord injury (SCI) using primarily acute thoracic injuries. However, the majority of SCI patients have chronic cervical injuries. Regaining hand function could significantly increase their quality of life. In this study, we used a clinically relevant chronic cervical contusion to study the therapeutic efficacy of rehabilitation in forelimb functional recovery. Nude rats received a moderate C5 unilateral contusive injury and were then divided into two groups with or without Modified Montoya Staircase (MMS) rehabilitation. For the rehabilitation group, rats were trained 5 days a week starting at 8 weeks post-injury (PI) for 6 weeks. All rats were assessed for skilled forelimb functions with MMS test weekly and for untrained gross forelimb locomotion with grooming and horizontal ladder (HL) tests biweekly. Our results showed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of pellets taken at 13 and 14 weeks PI and the accuracy rates at 12 to 14 weeks PI. However, there were no significant differences in the grooming scores or the percentage of HL missteps at any time point. Histological analyses revealed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of serotonergic fibers and the amount of presynaptic terminals around motor neurons in the cervical ventral horns caudal to the injury and reduced glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-immunoreactive astrogliosis in spinal cords caudal to the lesion. This study shows that MMS rehabilitation can modify the injury environment, promote axonal sprouting and synaptic plasticity, and importantly, improve reaching and grasping functions in the forelimb, supporting the therapeutic potential of task-specific rehabilitation for functional recovery after chronic SCI.
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spelling pubmed-72669852020-06-12 Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury Gallegos, Chrystine Carey, Matthew Zheng, Yiyan He, Xiuquan Cao, Qi Lin Front Cell Neurosci Neuroscience Previous studies suggest locomotion training could be an effective non-invasive therapy after spinal cord injury (SCI) using primarily acute thoracic injuries. However, the majority of SCI patients have chronic cervical injuries. Regaining hand function could significantly increase their quality of life. In this study, we used a clinically relevant chronic cervical contusion to study the therapeutic efficacy of rehabilitation in forelimb functional recovery. Nude rats received a moderate C5 unilateral contusive injury and were then divided into two groups with or without Modified Montoya Staircase (MMS) rehabilitation. For the rehabilitation group, rats were trained 5 days a week starting at 8 weeks post-injury (PI) for 6 weeks. All rats were assessed for skilled forelimb functions with MMS test weekly and for untrained gross forelimb locomotion with grooming and horizontal ladder (HL) tests biweekly. Our results showed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of pellets taken at 13 and 14 weeks PI and the accuracy rates at 12 to 14 weeks PI. However, there were no significant differences in the grooming scores or the percentage of HL missteps at any time point. Histological analyses revealed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of serotonergic fibers and the amount of presynaptic terminals around motor neurons in the cervical ventral horns caudal to the injury and reduced glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-immunoreactive astrogliosis in spinal cords caudal to the lesion. This study shows that MMS rehabilitation can modify the injury environment, promote axonal sprouting and synaptic plasticity, and importantly, improve reaching and grasping functions in the forelimb, supporting the therapeutic potential of task-specific rehabilitation for functional recovery after chronic SCI. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7266985/ /pubmed/32536855 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2020.00110 Text en Copyright © 2020 Gallegos, Carey, Zheng, He and Cao. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Gallegos, Chrystine
Carey, Matthew
Zheng, Yiyan
He, Xiuquan
Cao, Qi Lin
Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title_full Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title_fullStr Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title_full_unstemmed Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title_short Reaching and Grasping Training Improves Functional Recovery After Chronic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
title_sort reaching and grasping training improves functional recovery after chronic cervical spinal cord injury
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266985/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32536855
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2020.00110
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