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Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Longitudinal Evaluation of Mouse Hind Limb Bone Loss After Spinal Cord Injury using Novel, in vivo, Methodology
Published on: December 7, 2011
A longitudinal Raman microspectroscopic study of osteoporosis induced by spinal cord injury
1College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China.
Introduction:
A longitudinal study was established to investigate bone compositional information in spinal cord injury (SCI) rat model.
Methods:
Raman spectroscopy was applied to detect the distal femur and humeri of SCI, sham-operated (SO), and age-matched control (CON) male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats at first, second, third, and fifth weeks after surgery. One-way ANOVA and Tukey's HSD post hoc multiple comparison tests were used to analyze the longitudinal data of mineral to matrix ratio and carbonate substitution.
Results:
Relative mineral decrease was found in SCI group by more than 20% in femur and approximately 12% in humeri compared with CON group. No significant changes in carbonate substitution were observed.
Conclusions:
Severe bone loss in the early stage of SCI was confirmed by a continuous decrease of the mineral to collagen matrix ratio. The decrease in the humeri suggested hormone level variations might participate in the etiology of SCI-induced osteoporosis.
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