Development and Characterization of an Acute Impact-Compression Lumbar Spinal Cord Injury Model in the Rat

Traumatic injury to the lumbar spinal cord results in complex nervous tissue damage causing severe neurobehavioural deficits and significant personal/social adversity. Despite this, there are few clinically relevant models of lumbar spinal cord injury (SCI), even though lumbar cord injuries are common in humans. The following work characterizes a lumbar SCI model in the rat. The effects of moderate (20g) to severe (26g, 35g, and 56g) clip-compression injuries at the lumbar spinal cord level L1-L2 (vertebral level T11-T12) were assessed using a multitude of neurobehavioural, neuroanatomical and electrophysiological outcome measures. Analysis of the lesional tissue demonstrated significant tissue alterations after injury and electrophysiological outcomes confirmed these deficits. Neurobehavioural testing revealed severe deficits in hindlimb locomotion and highly pathological alterations in sensory outcomes. In summary, we have generated a unique lumbar SCI model that should be useful for a variety of pre-clinical translational oriented therapies.