Abstract
A cervical hemicontusion spinal cord injury (SCI) produces forelimb deficits on the ipsilateral side of the injury while sparing the function of the limbs on the contralateral side of the injury, allowing for the evaluation of experimental therapeutics for functional recovery. Although the effects of contusion force on the functional and behavioral outcomes were adequately described in previous experimental studies, the size of the impactor tip also had significant effects on the extent of the lesion on the contralateral side of the injury in the hemicontusion rat model. However, studies regarding the effects of impactor size on the spinal cord for the hemicontusion model are limited. In this study, a finite element (FE) model of the rat cervical spinal cord was developed to investigate the effects of impactor size in the hemicontusion SCI model on the stress, strain, and displacement of the spinal cord for the New York University (NYU) and Infinite Horizon (IH) impactors. The impactor tip diameters of 1.2 mm and 1.6 mm with high impact loading resulted in the highest stresses and strains in the right (ipsilateral) side of the spinal cord. Thus, impactor tip diameters between 1.2 mm and 1.6 mm would be convenient to use in the rat hemicontusion SCI models for the cervical region without damaging the left (contralateral) side of the spinal cord. Our findings provide an insight into SCI mechanisms in the rat cervical hemicontusion model.
Highlights
IntroductionSeveral experimental contusion spinal cord injury (SCI) models have been developed to study injury in the thoracic spinal cord [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] due to their reliability and reproducibility [9]
Most human spinal cord injuries (SCIs) occur in the cervical region [1]
We investigated the effects of impactor size on the biomechanical characteristics of the spinal cord in a hemicontusion injury model for the New York University (NYU) and Infinite Horizon (IH) impactors using the finite element (FE) model of the rat spinal cord in the cervical region
Summary
Several experimental contusion SCI models have been developed to study injury in the thoracic spinal cord [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] due to their reliability and reproducibility [9]. How findings in experimental injury models in the thoracic region are applicable to human cervical SCIs is questionable because the functional deficits and symptoms are significantly different for these two injury levels [10,11]. Contusion injuries damage both white and gray matter at either the cervical or thoracic region. Cervical hemicontusion injuries produce forelimb deficits on the ipsilateral side of the injury while sparing the function of the limbs on the contralateral side of the injury [9,12,16,17], allowing for the efficacy of experimental therapeutics for upper limb functional recovery to be evaluated [18]
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