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Updated: Mar 1, 2026
A Contusion Model of Severe Spinal Cord Injury in Rats
Published on: August 17, 2013
Creation of a contusion injury method for skeletal muscle in rats with differing impacts
Milla Gabriela Belarmino Dantas1, Camila Mahara Dias Damasceno2, Vanessa Raquel Pinto de Barros3
1Fellow Master degree, Postgraduate Program in Health and Biological Sciences, Center for Studies and Research of Medicinal Plants, Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco (UNIVASF), Petrolina-PE, Brazil. Technical procedures, acquisition and interpretation of data, macroscopic and histopathological examinations, manuscript preparation.
Purpose::
To realize a morphological examination of the musculoskeletal tissue, assessing the effect of a contusion method for the production in rat gastrocnemius, comparing the inflammatory responses generated by different impacts.
Methods::
For the analysis of a contusion method, twelve female Wistar rats were distributed into four groups. The lesion was generated by 324 g of mass that was dropped from different predetermined heights for each group (30, 45, 60 and 70 cm).
Results::
In the analysis of musculoskeletal tissue, the response to injury varied according to the mass of the height drop onto the muscle. Only the group that was injured from 70 cm responded with uniform and severe inflammation, whereas the groups 30, 45 and 60 cm showed inflammation in some regions of the tissue with mild and moderate infiltrates.
Conclusion::
The method with the 324-gram mass dropped from a 70-cm height onto the gastrocnemius muscle of rats seems to be the most suitable for the production of muscle injury in these animals after 72 hours, showing an important inflammatory infiltrate.
