Animal Models of Cerebral Changes Secondary to Spinal Cord Injury

Initial study on an expert system for spine diseases screening using inertial measurement unit

In recent times, widely understood spine diseases have advanced to one of the most urgetn problems where quick diagnosis and treatment are needed. To diagnose its specifics (e.g. to decide whether this is a scoliosis or sagittal imbalance) and assess its extend, various kind of imaging diagnostic methods (such as X-Ray, CT, MRI scan or ST) are used. However, despite their common use, some may be regarded as (to a level) invasive methods and there are cases where there are contraindications to using them. Besides, which is even more of a problem, these are very expensive methods and whilst their use for pure diagnostic purposes is absolutely valid, then due to their cost, they cannot rather be considered as tools which would be equally valid for bad posture screening programs purposes. This paper provides an initial evaluation of the alternative approach to the spine diseases diagnostic/screening using inertial measurement unit and we propose policy-based computing as the core for the inference systems. Although the methodology presented herein is potentially applicable to a variety of spine diseases, in the nearest future we will focus specifically on sagittal imbalance detection.

A case report of the treatment and care of decubitus ulcers in macaques with spinal cord injury

Decubitus ulcers are a common spinal cord injury (SCI) complication that puts patients' lives in danger and has emerged as a more prevalent issue in modern clinical rehabilitation and care. Decubitus ulcers in humans can currently be treated in a number of different ways, but there are fewer studies on how to treat and care for decubitus ulcers in macaques. To treat a 20-year-old adult male macaque monkey with SCI and decubitus ulcers after a quarter transection of the thoracic spinal cord, a number of scientific care procedures and pharmaceutical treatments, such as dietary changes and topical or intravenous administration of medication, were carried out and continuously monitored in real-time. In comparison to the untreated group, we observed a significant improvement in decubitus wound healing in the macaques. In this article, we provide a good protocol for decubitus ulcer care after SCI and suggest that future experimental animal modeling needs to focus on issues such as care for postoperative complications.

Microglial activation in the motor cortex mediated NLRP3-related neuroinflammation and neuronal damage following spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a traumatic event that can lead to neurodegeneration. Neuronal damage in the primary motor cortex (M1) can hinder motor function recovery after SCI. However, the exact mechanisms involved in neuronal damage after SCI remain incompletely understood. In this study, we found that microglia were activated in M1 after SCI, which triggered Nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) related chronic neuroinflammation and neuronal damage in vivo. Meanwhile, treatment with the microglia inhibitor minocycline reduced inflammation-induced neuronal damage in M1, protected the integrity of the motor conduction pathway, and promoted motor function recovery. Furthermore, we simulated chronic inflammation in M1 after SCI by culturing the primary neurons in primary microglia-conditioned medium, and observed that the injury to the primary neurons also occurred in vitro; however, as observed in vivo, these effects could be mitigated by minocycline treatment. Our results indicated that microglial activation in M1 mediates NLRP3-related neuroinflammation and causes the injury to M1 neurons, thereby impairing the integrity of the motor conduction pathway and inhibiting motor function recovery. These findings might contribute to the identification of novel therapeutic strategies for SCI.