Spinal cord injury (SCI) can lead to locomotor deficits, and the repair of chronic SCI is considered one of the most challenging clinical problems. Although extensive studies have evaluated treatments for acute SCI in small animals, comparatively fewer studies have been conducted on large-animal SCI in the chronic phase, which is more clinically relevant. Here, we used a collagen-based biomater...

In larval lamprey, with increasing recovery times after a transection of the rostral spinal cord, there is a gradual recovery of locomotor behavior, and descending brain neurons regenerate their axons for progressively greater distances below the transection site. In the present study, spinal cord "conditioning lesions" (i.e., transections) were performed in the spinal cord at 30% body length (...

Spinal cord injury is an extremely severe condition with no available effective therapies. We examined the effect of melatonin on traumatic compression of the spinal cord. Sixty male adult Wistar rats were divided into three groups: sham-operated animals and animals with 35 and 50% spinal cord compression with a polycarbonate rod spacer. Each group was divided into two subgroups, each receiving...

Strategies to induce recovery from lesions of the spinal cord have not fully resulted in clinical applications. This is a consequence of a number of impediments that axons encounter when trying to regrow beyond the lesion site, and that intraspinal rearrangements are subjected to. In the present study we evaluated (1) the possibility to improve locomotor recovery after complete transection of t...

BACKGROUND Locomotor training using body weight support and a treadmill as a therapeutic modality for rehabilitation of walking post-stroke is being rapidly adopted into clinical practice. There is an urgent need for a well-designed trial to determine the effectiveness of this intervention. The objective of the Locomotor Experience Applied Post-Stroke (LEAPS) trial is to determine if there is a...

The present study investigated goal-directed linear locomotion in nine Menière's patients before and after (1 week, 1 and 3 months) a curative unilateral vestibular neurotomy (UVN). Experiments were done using a 3D motion analysis system in subjects walking eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) towards a real or memorized target, respectively. Locomotor pattern (velocity, step length, step freque...

Clonidine, a noradrenergic alpha-2 agonist, can initiate locomotion early after spinalization in cats. Because this effect lasts 4-6 h, we have injected clonidine daily, intraperitoneally or intrathecally, and intensively trained five spinal cats to perform hindlimb walking on a treadmill starting at day 3 and continuing until 10 days posttransection. Each day, clonidine was injected to induce ...

Introduction: The role of different parts of the extended amygdala in metabolic signs of stress is not well understood. In the present study, we decided to evaluate the impact of the shell part of nucleus accumbens (NAc) on metabolic disturbance induced by electro foot shock stress using transient inactivation method in the rat.  Methods: Male Wistar rats (W: 230-250 g) were canuulated un...