Sciatic nerve injury alters the spatial arrangement of neurons and glial cells in the anterior horn of the spinal cord

Abstract

The spatial arrangement of the cell is important and considered as underlying mechanism for mathematical modeling of cell to cell interaction. The ability of cells to take on the characteristics of other cells in an organism, it is important to understand the dynamical behavior of the cells. This method implements experimental parameters of the cell-cell interaction into the mathematical simulation of cell arrangement. The purpose of this research was to explore the three-dimensional spatial distribution of anterior horn cells in the rat spinal cord to examine differences after sciatic nerve injury. Sixteen Sprague-Dawley male rats were assigned to control and axotomy groups. Twelve weeks after surgery, the anterior horn was removed for first- and second-order stereological studies. Second-order stereological techniques were applied to estimate the pair correlation and cross-correlation functions using a dipole probe superimposed onto the spinal cord sections. The findings revealed 7% and 36% reductions in the mean volume and total number of motoneurons, respectively, and a 25% increase in the neuroglial cell number in the axotomized rats compared to the control rats. In contrast, the anterior horn volume remained unchanged. The results also indicated a broader gap in the pair correlation curve for the motoneurons and neuroglial cells in the axotomized rats compared to the control rats. This finding shows a negative correlation for the distribution of motoneurons and neuroglial cells in the axotomized rats. The cross-correlation curve shows a negative correlation between the motoneurons and neuroglial cells in the axotomized rats. These findings suggest that cellular structural and functional changes after sciatic nerve injury lead to the alterations in the spatial arrangement of motoneurons and neuroglial cells, finally affecting the normal function of the central nervous system. The experimental protocol was reviewed and approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (approval No. IR.SBMU.MSP.REC1395.375) on October 17, 2016.

Peripheral nerve injury: molecular pathophysiology and prospects for restorative treatment by means of cell transplantation: a literature review

“…У деяких випадках аксонотомія провокує апоптоз мотонейронів спинного мозку шляхом збільшення експресії APAF-1 (apoptotic protease activating factor 1), Bax (B-cell lymphoma 2 associated X protein), каспази-3 і каспази-9 [75][76][77]. За цих же умов спостерігають некротичні зміни в сірій речовині спинного мозку на тлі збільшення тканинної концентрації глутамату та зменшення вмісту цАМФ [77]. Наслідками поширеної загибелі нейронів спинного мозку є реактивний гліоз [62,[77][78][79][80] і перебудова нейронної мережі рухової системи.…”

“…За цих же умов спостерігають некротичні зміни в сірій речовині спинного мозку на тлі збільшення тканинної концентрації глутамату та зменшення вмісту цАМФ [77]. Наслідками поширеної загибелі нейронів спинного мозку є реактивний гліоз [62,[77][78][79][80] і перебудова нейронної мережі рухової системи.…”