Assessment of motor recovery and MRI correlates in a porcine spinal cord injury model

Šulla, Igor; Bačiak, Ladislav; Juránek, Ivo; Cicholesová, Tatiana; Boldižár, Martin; Balik, Vladimír; Lukáčová, Nadežda

doi:10.2754/avb201483040393

Acta Veterinaria > Archive > 2014, Vol. 83 > Issue 4 > Assessment of motor recovery and MRI…

Acta Vet. Brno 2014, 83: 393-397

https://doi.org/10.2754/avb201483040393

Assessment of motor recovery and MRI correlates in a porcine spinal cord injury model

Igor Šulla¹, Ladislav Bačiak², Ivo Juránek³, Tatiana Cicholesová⁴, Martin Boldižár⁵, Vladimír Balik⁶, Nadežda Lukáčová⁷

¹University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Anatomy, Histology and Physiology, Kosice, Slovakia
²Slovak Technical University, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Department of NMR Spectroscopy and Mass Spectrometry, Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Bratislava, Slovakia
³Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology, Bratislava, Slovakia
⁴University Hospital of L. Pasteur, Department of Physiotherapy, Kosice, Slovakia
⁵University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Clinic for Horses, Kosice, Slovakia
⁶University Hospital, Department of Neurosurgery, Olomouc, Czech Republic
⁷Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Neurobiology, Kosice, Slovakia

The study concentrated on behavioral and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) characteristics in a porcine spinal cord injury model. Six adult minipigs weighing 32–35 kg were narcotized by thiopental, intubated, and placed on a volume-cycled ventilator. Anaesthesia was maintained by 1.5% sevoflurane with oxygen. Following location of the 1^st lumbar vertebra animals were fastened in an immobilization frame. The spinal cord, exposed through a laminectomy, was compressed by a 5 mm thick circular rod with a peak force of 0.8 kg at a velocity of 3 cm·s^-1. The next day the minipigs were paraplegic but improved rapidly to paraparesis. On the 12^th postoperative day they were euthanasied. Neural tissue changes were evaluated by post mortem MRI, which showed damage to the spinal cord white and/or gray matter in the epicentre of compression with longitudinal spreading over one segment cranially and caudally. Statistical analyses performed by Spearman’s rho test revealed positive correlations between damaged areas and the whole area of the spinal cord white/gray matter (P = 0.047; r_s = 0.742) and (P = 0.002; r_s = 0.943), respectively. The study confirmed the reliability and reproducibility of the utilised model of spinal cord trauma. The structural changes in the epicentre of injury did not impede the rapid but incomplete recovery of motor functions.