Introduction: The use of standard rodent model, allows for the understanding of neuronal injury physiopathology and helping development of therapeutic strategies. Because of eliminating technical problems, we designed a modified impactor device with ability to induce different degrees according to kilodyne from very mild to very severe of spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI...

Spinal cord injuries devastate the lives of those affected. Normally, acute injury leads to chronic injury in the spinal cord, although this has a variable impact on normal sensory and motor functions. Currently the only drug used to treat acute spinal cord injury is methyl-prednisolone, administered in order to prevent secondary inflammatory neural damage. Thus, it is time that alternative and...

Adult mammalian brains undergo reorganization following deafferentations due to peripheral nerve, cortical or spinal cord injuries. The largest extent of cortical reorganization is seen in area 3b of the somatosensory cortex of monkeys with chronic transection of the dorsal roots or dorsal columns of the spinal cord. These injuries cause expansion of intact face inputs into the deafferented han...

There is some clinical evidence to suggest that fractures of long bones heal more rapidly in patients with severe head injury or acute traumatic spinal cord injury. The mechanism underlying this orthopedic phenomenon is not well understood. The aim of the current study was to investigate the bone healing of diaphyseal femoral fractures in patients with concomitant head or spinal cord injuries a...

The purposes of the current investigation are to evaluate the epidemiology of water sport injuries at a coastal tertiary trauma center and to determine the association of these activities with spinal column injury and to determine whether aquatic trauma injuries differ significantly from those that occur terrestrially. A retrospective review of a consecutive series of 105 patients with aquatic-...

With the high level of crime in the Western Cape, the state hospitals have witnessed a tremendous increase in the incidence of gunshot injuries. The Groote Schuur Trauma Unit sees between 70 and 120 gunshot injuries a month. Many of these involve the musculoskeletal system, and some the spine. This is in stark contrast to the European experience. Of 34 903 trauma cases seen in Scotland over 28 ...

The high tackle around the neck is illegal but still commonplace in South African rugby. An analysis of 40 rugby players who sustained spinal cord injury during the period 1985-1989 revealed that 8 were injured by a high tackle. The case histories and radiographs of these 8 players were analysed. The majority sustained flexion-rotation injuries after being tackled from the side. Another mechani...

One third of all spinal injuries involve cervical vertebrae, and the impact of injury to the cervical spinal cord is profound and requires systemic treatment. The role and timing of surgical decompression after an acute spinal cord injury (SCI) remains one of the most controversial topics pertaining to spinal surgery. Lack of controlled, prospective, multicenter clinical studies has contributed...

Background: Oligodendrocyte cell death is among the important features of spinal cord injury, which appears within 15 min and occurs intensely for 4 h after injury, in the rat spinal contusion model. Accordingly, the number of oligodendrocytes progressively reduced within 24 h after injury. Administration of oligodendrocyte-like cells (OLCs) into the lesion area is one of the approaches to coun...