Eliciting inflammation enables successful rehabilitative training in chronic spinal cord injury.

ABSTRACT: Rehabilitative training is one of the most successful therapies to promote motor recovery after spinal cord injury, especially when applied early after injury. Polytrauma and management of other medical complications in the acute post-injury setting often preclude or complicate early rehabilitation. Therefore, interventions that reopen a window of opportunity for effective motor training after chronic injury would have significant therapeutic value. Here, we tested whether this could be achieved in rats with chronic (8 weeks) dorsolateral quadrant sections of the cervical spinal cord (C4) by inducing mild neuroinflammation. We found that systemic injection of a low dose of lipopolysaccharide improved the efficacy of rehabilitative training on forelimb function, as assessed using a single p

SUBMITTER: Torres-Espin A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6022560 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature