Abstract
Regenerated cerebrospinal axons are considered to be involved in the spontaneous recovery of swimming ability following a spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish. We employed behavioral analysis, neuronal tracing, and immunocytochemistry to determine the exact temporal relationship between swimming ability and regenerated cerebrospinal axon number in adult zebrafish with a complete spinal cord transection. Between two and eight weeks post-lesion, swimming gradually improved to 44% of sham-injured zebrafish. Neurons within the reticular formation, magnocellular octaval nucleus, and nucleus of the medial longitudinal fascicle grew their axon across and at least four millimeters beyond the lesion. The largest increases in swimming ability and number of regenerated cerebrospinal axons were observed between two and four weeks post-lesion. Regression analyses revealed a significant correlation between swimming ability and the number of regenerated axons. Our results indicate the involvement of cerebrospinal axons in swimming recovery after spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish.
Highlights
Adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) spontaneously recover coordinated swimming function after spinal cord injury [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Ependymoradial glial cells have a central role in the formation and functioning of this tissue [5,7], which serves as a bridge for cerebrospinal axons that grow into the caudal spinal cord [2,4,5,6,7,8,9]
Investigating the individual nuclei, we found that swimming ability correlated with the number of FE-positive neurons in the reticular formation (RT) (r2 = .38, p,0.01, n = 92; Fig. 8A), magnocellular octaval nucleus (MaON) (r2 = .13, p,0.01, n = 92, Fig. 8B), and nucleus of the medial longitudinal fascicle (NMLF) (r2 = .25, p,0.01, n = 92; Fig. 8C)
Summary
Adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) spontaneously recover coordinated swimming function after spinal cord injury [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. This recovery is partial after a complete transection [1,3,4,5,6] and nearly full after a crush of the spinal cord [7], demonstrating the restorative potential of the central nervous system in adult zebrafish. We performed quantitative longitudinal analyses of spontaneous swimming restoration, tissue formation, and axonal regeneration in adult wild-type zebrafish after a complete spinal cord transection. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between swimming and regenerating cerebrospinal axons
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