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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

A Murine Model of Cervical Spinal Cord Injury to Study Post-lesional Respiratory Neuroplasticity
Published on: May 28, 2014
Corticospinal axons persist in cervical and high thoracic regions 10 weeks after a T-9 spinal cord transection
J N Pruitt1, E R Feringa, R L McBride
1Medical College of Georgia, Augusta.
Abstract:
Ten weeks after complete spinal cord transection at T-9, there was a decrease in the volume of the rat corticospinal tract but no loss in the number of axons contained in the cervical (C-2) or high thoracic (T-1) corticospinal tract. The mean area of the myelinated axon profile decreased in spinal cord-transected rats, with fewer axons found in the largest size groups and more in the smaller size groups. The survival of corticospinal axons in the cervical and thoracic cord 10 weeks after cord transection at T-9 indicates that the corticospinal neurons survive at least 10 weeks after cord transection. The fate of axotomized neurons after longer survival times remains to be determined.
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