Temporal modifications in bone following spinal cord injury in rats

• Autor(a) principal: Medalha, Carla Christina [UNIFESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Amorim, Beatriz Oliveira [UNIFESP], Fernandes, Kelly Rossetti [UNIFESP], Pereira, Rosa Maria, Renno, Ana Claudia Muniz [UNIFESP], Ribeiro, Daniel Araki [UNIFESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.5114/aoms.2012.32424; https://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/35539
• topic: Rat; Spinal cord injury; Bone loss

Introduction: the aim of this study was to investigate the temporal modifications in bone mass, bone biomechanical properties and bone morphology in spinal cord injured rats 2, 4 and 6 weeks after a transection.Material and methods: Control animals were randomly distributed into four groups (n = 10 each group): control group (CG) - control animals sacrificed immediately after surgery; spinal cord-injured 2 weeks (2W) - spinal cord-injured animals sacrificed 2 weeks after surgery; spinal cord-injured 4 weeks (4W) - spinal cord-injured animals sacrificed 4 weeks after surgery; spinal cord-injured 6 weeks (6W) - spinal cord-injured animals sacrificed 6 weeks after surgery.Results: Biomechanical properties of the right tibia were determined by a threepoint bending test and injured animals showed a statistically significant decrease in maximal load compared to control animals. the right femur was used for densitometric analysis and bone mineral content of the animals sacrificed 4 and 6 weeks after surgery was significantly higher compared to the control animals and animals sacrificed 2 weeks after surgery. Histopathological and morphological analysis of tibiae revealed intense resorptive areas in the group 2 weeks after injury only.Conclusions: the results of this study show that this rat model is a valuable tool to investigate bone remodeling processes specifically associated with SCI. Taken together, our results suggest that spinal cord injury induced bone loss within 2 weeks after injury in rats.