OBJECTIVES Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury of spinal cord is leading to the paraplegia observed. In this study, we investigated the protective effect of the saffron extract on spinal cord I/R injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty five male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 5 groups: intact, sham surgery, normal saline (NS), low dose saffron aqua extract, high dose saffron aqua extract. ...

Proper transportation of mitochondria to sites with high energy demands is critical for neuronal function and survival. Impaired mitochondrial movement has been repeatedly reported in motor neurons of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients and indicated as an important mechanism contributing to motor neuron degeneration in ALS. Miro1, a RhoGTPase also referred to as Rhot1, is a key regula...

this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of maternal diabetes on fetal spinal structure, especiallyin brachial enlargement. sixteen adult female rats were divided into two groups. diabetes was induced in one group by alloxan agent. both groups became pregnant by natural matting. on days 7, 14, 21 and 28 after birth, the brachial enlargement of the spinal cord was collected from offsprin...

Activity-dependent specification of neuronal architecture during early postnatal life is essential for refining the precision of communication between neurons. In the spinal cord under normal circumstances, the AMPA receptor subunit GluR1 is expressed at high levels by motor neurons and surrounding interneurons during this critical developmental period, although the role it plays in circuit for...

A limited midline myelotomy at T10 can relieve pelvic cancer pain in patients. This observation is explainable in light of strong evidence in support of the existence of a visceral pain pathway that ascends in the dorsal column (DC) of the spinal cord. In rats and monkeys, responses of neurons in the ventral posterolateral thalamic nucleus to noxious colorectal distention are dramatically reduc...

During embryogenesis the spinal cord shifts position along the anterior-posterior axis relative to adjacent tissues. How motor neurons whose cell bodies are located in the spinal cord while their axons reside in adjacent tissues compensate for such tissue shift is not well understood. Using live cell imaging in zebrafish, we show that as motor axons exit from the spinal cord and extend through ...

We examined the electrophysiological activity of motor neurons from the mouse model of severe spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) using two different methods: whole cell patch clamp of neurons cultured from day 13 embryos; and multi-electrode recording of ventral horns in spinal cord slices from pups on post-natal days 5 and 6. We used the MED64 multi-electrode array to record electrophysiological ac...

treatment of spinal cord injury by exogenous cells has brought both successful and unsuccessful results. olfactory ensheathing cells and schwann cells have been widely used for transplantation purposes. in this study, we investigated the effects of these cells on contused spinal cord by introducing cells into subarachnoid space. fifty thousand schwann cells or olfactory ensheathing cells or a m...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a nervous system disease characterized by sensory and motor dysfunction, axonal apoptosis, decreased vascular density, inflammation. At present, surgical treatment, drug cell therapy can be used. Surgical treatment improve independent function scores, promote the recovery of neurons in spinal cord, but only symptoms. Complete SCI has not yet been achieved. However, d...