Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 31, 2026
Activity-based Training on a Treadmill with Spinal Cord Injured Wistar Rats
Published on: January 16, 2019
Horizontal ladder task-specific re-training in adult rats with contusive thoracic spinal cord injury
Stephen M Onifer1, Oliver Zhang, Laura K Whitnel-Smith
1Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA. smonif2@email.uky.edu
Purpose:
Using the horizontal ladder task, we examined some issues that need to be resolved before task-specific rehabilitative training can be employed clinically for the frequent contusive spinal cord injury (SCI). We hypothesized that improving recovery in task performance after contusive thoracic SCI requires frequent re-training and initiating the re-training early during spontaneous recovery.
Methods:
Contusive SCI was produced at the adult female Sprague Dawley rat T10 vertebra. Task re-training was initiated one week later when occasional weight-supported plantar steps were taken overground (n = 8). It consisted of 2 repetitions each day, 5 days each week, for 3 weeks. Task performance and overground locomotion were assessed weekly. Neurotransmission through the SCI ventrolateral funiculus was examined. SCI morphometry was determined.
Results:
Re-training did not improve task performance recovery compared to untrained Controls (n = 7). Untrained overground locomotion and neurotransmission through the SCI did not change. Lesion area at the injury epicenter as a percentage of the total spinal cord area as well as total tissue, lesion, and spared tissue, white matter, or gray matter volumes did not differ.
Conclusions:
For the horizontal ladder task after contusive thoracic SCI, earlier re-training sessions with more repetitions and critical neural circuitry may be necessary to engender a rehabilitation effect.
