A Neonatal Mouse Spinal Cord Injury Model for Assessing Post-Injury Adaptive Plasticity and Human Stem Cell Integration

This paper introduces a new model for studying spinal cord injuries in newborn mice. Researchers created a spinal cord compression injury to mimic real-world injuries. This model allows for the study of how the young spinal cord can reorganize itself after injury. The model also serves as a platform to test how human stem cells can be used to repair spinal cord damage. The researchers injected human stem cells into the injured spinal cord of the mice and observed how well these cells integrated into the damaged tissue. The results showed that the injured mice recovered some movement and that the human stem cells were able to survive and begin to develop into specialized cells within the mouse spinal cord. This model helps scientists to better understand spinal cord injury and potential treatments.

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  Dramatic degeneration of axons and synaptic contacts was evident within 24 hours of SCC, and loss of neurons in the injured segment was evident for at least a month thereafter.
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  Within 4 days of SCC and progressively thereafter, hindlimb motility began to be restored and descending inputs reappeared, but with examples of atypical synaptic connections indicating a reorganization of circuitry.
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  Genetically labeled human fetal neural progenitor cells injected into the injured spinal cord survived for at least a month, integrated into the host tissue and began to differentiate morphologically.