Strategies for modifying axonal growth, synaptic function, and recovery of neural function after injury to the central nervous system: a conference report. National Spinal Cord Injury Association and the Society for Neuroscience. May 10-12, 1985, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Frontal cortex grafts have opposite effects at different postoperative recovery times

We studied the effect of different postoperative times on the behavioral recovery following brain implants. Adult male rats received cortical tissue grafts 2 weeks after aspiration of the medial frontal cortex. Either 2 (Immediate Group) or 28 (Delay Group) days after grafting, the performance of these rats on a behavioral battery, comprising the Morris water maze task, forepaw use, and grooming, was compared to that of rats with similar lesions and postoperative recovery times but no grafts. Rats tested immediately after receiving implants performed better on the spatial navigation task than rats with similar lesions but no grafts. This improvement, however, was less than that shown by rats with lesions but no grafts permitted to recover for 28 days before testing. In contrast, in the Delay Group, rats with grafts were more greatly impaired than were their operated controls. Neither lesions nor grafts affected grooming although the Immediate Group with grafts were significantly more impaired in using their forepaws during feeding than were any of the other groups. These results lead us to conclude that differing postoperative recovery times and task requirements may account for some of the inconsistent results of the influence of brain grafts on behavioral recovery reported in the literature. We also conclude that cortical tissue implants can have two effects with different time courses and opposite net behavioral effects.

Plasticity of primary afferent acid phosphatase expression following rerouting of afferents from muscle to skin in the adult rat

We have examined the possibility that reinnervation of a new peripheral target by primary afferent neurones can alter the histochemical properties of those afferents in the adult rat. The hindlimb sural and gastrocnemius nerves largely supply skin and muscle, respectively. In adult animals these nerves were cut and rejoined to either their own distal stumps (self-anastomosis) or that of the other nerve (cross-anastomosis) and allowed to regenerate for 12-16 weeks to reinnervate an appropriate or inappropriate target. Fluoride-resistant acid phosphatase (FRAP) is a chemical marker found in many unmyelinated afferents. We have determined the FRAP expression in normal and regrown nerves and examined its distribution in the dorsal horn of animals with self- and cross-anastomosed nerves. While normal and self-anastomosed sural nerves stained heavily for FRAP, gastrocnemius nerves showed either no staining or only the occasional fibre. Cross-anastomosed gastrocnemius nerves, now innervating the skin, showed a significant increase in staining, in some cases approaching the levels normally seen in sural nerves. Conversely, cross-anastomosed sural nerves (innervating muscle) showed decreased FRAP staining. In the normal dorsal horn the terminals of FRAP containing afferents form a thin band extending throughout the mediolateral extent of lamina II (Devor and Claman: Brain Res. 190:17-28, '80). One week after axotomy of the sural nerve, FRAP is depleted from its terminals and a gap appears in the normal FRAP staining pattern in the lumbar enlargement of the spinal cord. The new expression of FRAP in cross-anastomosed nerves was also seen in their terminals in the dorsal horn.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Selective enhancement of tubulin gene expression and increase in oligo(dT)-bound RNA in the rat brain after nigrostriatal pathway unilateral lesion and treatment with ganglioside

Partial hemitransection of the rat nigrostriatal pathway has been applied to study changes in the expression of tubulin and actin cytoskeletal genes. RNA was isolated from ipsilateral and contralateral structures of substantia nigra and striatum tissues of lesioned or sham-operated animals by a combined proteinase K and oligo(dT)-cellulose affinity purification procedure. A significant increase in the oligo(dT)-cellulose-eluted RNA was observed in the lesioned substantia nigra and striatal tissues compared to naive controls. By 5 days, the RNA content of the lesioned nigra reached a value of 96-114.5 micrograms/mg DNA compared to 45.7-52.9 micrograms/mg DNA. Administration of GM1 gangliosides at daily intervals resulted by day 5 in a further increase (131.8-141.5 micrograms/mg DNA) in the RNA content of the lesioned but also of the sham-operated (81.9-97.8 micrograms/mg DNA) animals. By 18 hr, the lesioned nigra exhibited a four-fold increase in tubulin messenger RNA (mRNAtub) gene expression in comparison to the sham-operated animals. The substantia nigra tissue of GM1-treated animals exhibited a hybridization value for mRNAtub twice as high compared to GM1-untreated, lesioned animals. The effect of GM1 appeared selective for alpha-tubulin and beta-tubulin compared to actin transcript. The latter was also elevated in the lesioned nigra tissue above the naive or sham-operated animals. The data suggest that, after injury, cytoskeletal RNA transcripts are elevated and that GM1 may play a role in the regulation of their steady-state levels.