The cervical spine is the most common site of traumatic vertebral column injuries. Respiratory insufficiency constitutes a significant proportion of the morbidity burden and is the most common cause of mortality in these patients. In seeking to enhance our capacity to treat specifically the respiratory dysfunction following spinal cord injury, investigators have studied the "crossed phrenic phe...

After an incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI), partial recovery of locomotion is accomplished with time. Previous studies have established a functional link between extension of axon collaterals from spared spinal tracts and locomotor recovery after SCI, but the tissular signals triggering collateral sprouting have not been identified. Here, we investigated whether axonal degeneration after SCI ...

Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) improves outcome after experimental SCI by counteracting apoptosis, and enhancing connectivity in the injured spinal cord. Previously we have employed the mouse hemisection SCI model and studied motor function after subcutaneous or transgenic delivery of the protein. To further broaden confidence in animal efficacy data we sought to determine effica...

The functional roles of the major visuo-motor pathways were studied in lamprey. Responses to eye illumination were video-recorded in intact and chronically lesioned animals. Postural deficits during spontaneous swimming were analyzed to elucidate the roles of the lesioned structures for steering and postural control. Eye illumination in intact lampreys evoked the dorsal light response, that is,...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Light therapy has biomodulatory effects on central and peripheral nervous tissue. Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe central nervous system trauma with no effective restorative therapies. The effectiveness of light therapy on SCI caused by different types of trauma was determined. STUDY DESIGN/MATERIALS AND METHODS Two SCI models were used: a contusion model and a ...

The origin of substance P-like immunoreactivity (SPLI) in the neuropil of sympathetic preganglionic neurons (SPNs) was investigated in pigeon (Columba livia). Previous investigators had suggested that a major SPLI-containing projection to SPNs arose from caudal brainstem (Johansson, O., T. Hokfelt, B. Pernow, S. L. Jeffcoate, N. White, H. W. M. Steinbusch, A. A. J. Verhofstad, P. C. Emson, and ...

Neurons in the rostroventrolateral medulla (RVLM) mediate baroreflex regulation (BR) of spinal sympathetic preganglionic neurons. Previously, our laboratory has shown that recovery of BR occurs in the rat after spinal hemisection. (Zahner MR, Kulikowicz E, and Schramm LP. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 301: R1584-R1590, 2011). The goal of these experiments was to determine whether the o...

Therapy using acellular spinal cord (ASC) scaffolds seeded with bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) has previously been shown to restore function of the damaged spinal cord and improve functional recovery in a rat model of acute hemisected spinal cord injury (SCI). The aim of the present study was to determine whether BMSCs and ASC scaffolds promote the functional recovery of the damaged spinal c...