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Updated: Jun 4, 2026

Unilateral Pyramidotomy of the Corticospinal Tract in Rats for Assessment of Neuroplasticity-inducing Therapies
Published on: December 15, 2014
Developmental plasticity of descending motor pathways
Hsiu-Ling Li1, Curtis O Asante
1Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. hl428@columbia.edu
None:
Juvenile animal brains are highly plastic and thus often achieve better functional recovery after injury compared with adult brains. Recently, Umeda et al. (Umeda T, Takahashi M, Isa K, Isa T. J Neurophysiol 104: 1707-1716, 2010) have shown that the remodeling of both corticospinal and extra-pyramidal pathways can contribute to the recovery of grasping and reaching ability in hemidecorticated juvenile rats. They have further unveiled the strengthening of the cortico-reticulo-spinal pathway after injury, that mediates the fast excitation of ipsilateral motoneurons for functional recovery.
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