Contusion Models of Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition affecting approximately 262,000 Americans with 12,000 new cases each year. In addition to the obvious motor and sensory deficits, SCI decreases life expectancy, independence and overall quality of life while increasing patient health care costs dramatically. Much has already been elucidated about SCI mechanisms and injury progression using rodent models of thoracic SCI; however, no pharmacological interventions have proven to be overwhelmingly effective in the human SCI population. Given the dire outcomes following SCI, discovery of novel pharmacological interventions for the treatment of SCI remains a top priority. The characterization and use of highly clinically relevant models of SCI are therefore of utmost importance in the quest to find pharmacological interventions as well as to further our understanding of SCI mechanisms and injury progression. The method outlined here describes a rat cervical hemicontusion SCI model which closely resembles the etiology and progression of human SCI. Application of more clinically relevant models of SCI, including this cervical hemicontusion model, will allow the field to move forward toward novel drug discovery and treatment of human SCI.