Differences in neuroplasticity after spinal cord injury in varying animal models and humans

Rats have been the primary model to study the process and underlying mechanisms of recovery after spinal cord injury. Two weeks after a severe spinal cord contusion, rats can regain weight-bearing abilities without therapeutic interventions, as assessed by the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan locomotor scale. However, many human patients suffer from permanent loss of motor function following spinal cord injury. While rats are the most understood animal model, major differences in sensorimotor pathways between quadrupeds and bipeds need to be considered. Understanding the major differences between the sensorimotor pathways of rats, non-human primates, and humans is a start to improving targets for treatments of human spinal cord injury. This review will discuss the neuroplasticity of the brain and spinal cord after spinal cord injury in rats, non-human primates, and humans. A brief overview of emerging interventions to induce plasticity in humans with spinal cord injury will also be discussed.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Neural Regeneration Research

• Publication date

  2019-01-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.4103/1673-5374.243694PMID 30531063PMCID 6263009
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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