Tail nerve electrical stimulation induces body weight-supported stepping in rats with spinal cord injury

Tail Nerve Electrical Stimulation and Electro-Acupuncture Can Protect Spinal Motor Neurons and Alleviate Muscle Atrophy after Spinal Cord Transection in Rats

“…Grau et al found that controllable electrical stimulation applied to the rat tail of transected spinal cord can offer adaptive plasticity within lumbar interneuronal populations of putative central pattern generators (CPG) to promote spinal learning [46, 47]. The work from Zhang et al also confirmed that TANES can activate the CPG in the lumbar spinal cord to promote the locomotor recovery of contused spinal cord of rat [9, 30]. Here, we demonstrated for the first time the therapeutic efficacy of TANES on spinal neuron protection and atrophy muscle improvement in an animal model of complete SCI.…”

“…Tail nerve electrical stimulation (TANES) for SCI therapy was first put forward and used by Zhang et al They found that electrical stimulation on the tail of a rat was conducive to locomotor recovery in a model of rat spinal cord contused, and this was ascribed to the activation of central pattern generator (CPG) through the tail nerve [9]. …”

“…In addition to electrical stimulation, TANES or EA might offer activity-dependent plasticity as well. However, the study of TANES was mainly concerned with the locomotor behavior change for contused spinal cord of rat, while the spinal pathophysiological changes had remained unexplored [9, 29, 30]. In EA study, the investigation was extended to the behavioral reaction and focused on structural change in the injury site of the spinal cord [26, 28].…”

Preclinical evidence supporting the clinical development of central pattern generator-modulating therapies for chronic spinal cord-injured patients

“…Clonidine, an alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonist, administered during sensory stimulation (e.g., tail or sexual organ pinching) was also reported to enhance the effects of training and/or sensory stimulation (remains unclear) on locomotor rhythmogenesis in TX cats (Forssberg and Grillner, 1973; Barbeau and Rossignol, 1990, 1991; Pearson and Rossignol, 1991; Chau et al, 1998a,b; Rossignol et al, 2001). However, it has been difficult to determine site-specific actions (e.g., on motoneurons, CPG neurons or primary afferents) from results in many of these earlier studies that were not designed to specifically assess drug-induced CPG activation per se (i.e., given the use of additional stimuli including tail stimulation, sexual organ pinching, regular training or weight support assistance, see Lovely et al, 1986; Bélanger et al, 1996; Zhang et al, 2010). More recently, experiments conducted in our laboratory in a mouse model of paraplegia (a complete low-thoracic TX) with no assistance or additional stimuli (e.g., no training, no tail stimulation, no sexual organ pinching, and no weight-support assistance to avoid unspecific non-drug induced effects) have contributed to identify clearly a subset of transmembranal receptors involved in pharmacologically-elicited, CPG-mediated locomotor-like movements in the lower extremities (Guertin, 2008, 2009a,b).…”

Characterization of a novel bidirectional distraction spinal cord injury animal model

“…Based on the type of tissue damage, SCI can be categorized into contusion, distraction/flexion, dislocation, and partial or complete transection. Despite these varied mechanisms of insult, the majority of animal models available for studying the pathobiology of SCI have been performed primarily in rat models of spinal cord transection or contusion (Anderson et al, 2009;Fehlings and Baptiste, 2005;Samantaray et al, 2008;Zhang et al, 2010).…”