Establishment and Evaluation of a New Rat Model for Spinal Cord Injury

Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a central nervous system injury with a high disability rate. Traditional SCI animal models have high mortality and cannot simulate clinical diseases well. Therefore, this study was aimed to develop a new SCI rat model by selecting new injured spinal segments, so as to provide a better animal model for clinical research. Methods: A new SCI rat model was generated by injuring thorax 12 (T12) and T13 segments. Hematoxylin-Eosin (HE) staining and toluidine blue staining were used to observed the histopathological changes of the spinal cord. The operating time, amount of bleeding, surgical incision length, and death rate in two SCI model groups were collected. Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor score, the action recovery ability, the score of auditory recovery, the score of tactile ability, and the dietary recovery score were determined by behavior experiments. Results: Relative to the conventional model, the operating time, amount of bleeding, surgical incision length, and death rate in novel SCI model were significantly reduced. However, BBB locomotor score was consistent with the conventional model. The histopathological examinations showed that the spinal cord injury and number of large and medium-sized neurons was significantly decreased in novel SCI rat model. Conclusions: The novel SCI rat model was successfully established, which may helpful in the exploring the mechanistic and treatment strategy of SCI.