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PMID: 9425019 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Fetal spinal cord transplants support growth of supraspinal and segmental projections after cervical spinal cord hemisection in the neonatal rat.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience ·Vol. 18 ·No. 2 ·1998-01-15 ·Pages 779-93

Diener PS, Bregman BS

Abstract

Cervical spinal cord injury at birth permanently disrupts forelimb function in goal-directed reaching. Transplants of fetal spinal cord tissue permit the development of skilled forelimb use and associated postural adjustments (, companion article). The aim of this study was to determine whether transplants of fetal spinal cord tissue support the remodeling of supraspinal and segmental pathways that may underlie recovery of postural reflexes and forelimb movements. Although brainstem-spinal and segmental projections to the cervical spinal cord are present at birth, skilled forelimb reaching has not yet developed. Three-day-old rats received a cervical spinal cord overhemisection with or without transplantation of fetal spinal cord tissue (embryonic day 14); unoperated pups served as normal controls. Neuroanatomical tracing techniques were used to examine the organization of CNS pathways that may influence target-directed reaching. In animals with hemisections only, corticospinal, brainstem-spinal, and dorsal root projections within the spinal cord were decreased in number and extent. In contrast, animals receiving hemisections plus transplants exhibited growth of these projections throughout the transplant and over long distances within the host spinal cord caudal to the transplant. Raphespinal axons were apposed to numerous propriospinal neurons in control and transplant animals; these associations were greatly reduced in the lesion-only animals. These observations suggest that after neonatal cervical spinal cord injury, embryonic transplants support axonal growth of CNS pathways and specifically supraspinal input to propriospinal neurons. We suggest that after neonatal spinal injury in the rat, the transplant-mediated reestablishment of supraspinal input to spinal circuitry is the mechanism underlying the development of target-directed reaching and associated postural adjustments.

MeSH Terms
Animals Animals, Newborn Axonal Transport/physiology Cerebral Cortex/cytology Fetal Tissue Transplantation Motor Neurons/physiology Nerve Tissue/transplantation Neurons/physiology Rats Rats, Sprague-Dawley Red Nucleus/cytology Spinal Cord/surgery Spinal Cord Injuries/surgery
Authors & Affiliations
2 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Diener P S
Department of Cell Biology, Division of Neurobiology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C. 20007, USA.
Bregman B S
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Article Info
Journal
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
Abbr.
J Neurosci
ISSN
0270-6474
Published
1998-01-15
Pages
779-93
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
8102140
PMCID
PMC6792540
Subset
IM
Grants
NICHD NIH HHS · G32 HD07459 · United States
NINDS NIH HHS · NS19259 · United States
NINDS NIH HHS · NS27054 · United States
External Links
PubMed source PMC Full Text View journal details
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