The Hemisection Approach in Large Animal Models of Spinal Cord Injury: Overview of Methods and Applications

A one-health approach to using sheep in research, with a focus on neuroscience studies

“…Spinal cord injury (SCI) [Figure 1] refers to damage occurring directly by mechanical impact or indirectly by the body's attempt to repair the damage over time. It can be inflicted by trauma, disease, degeneration, or ischemia [83][84][85] . This uncommon medical problem can lead to overwhelming financial costs arising from high rates of mortality, hospitalization, and patient care and the productivity loss of the affected individuals.…”

“…This uncommon medical problem can lead to overwhelming financial costs arising from high rates of mortality, hospitalization, and patient care and the productivity loss of the affected individuals. Added costs arise from post-SCI complications, including neurological dysfunction like spasticity, paralysis, paraparesis and fatigue, and potential future contractures, pressure ulcers, and infections [83,86,87] . A deeper understanding of the biology, pathology, and post-SCI repair mechanisms is required due to the lack of a well-defined treatment.…”

“…A deeper understanding of the biology, pathology, and post-SCI repair mechanisms is required due to the lack of a well-defined treatment. This knowledge deficit is driving researchers to a shift towards large animal models for better human translational outcomes [83] .…”

“…Animal SCI models include rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, cats, pigs, and NHPs, while far fewer studies have been conducted in sheep. Although the most commonly used SCI animal model is the rat, its suitability for preliminary studies is uncertain [83,84,86] . The preference for rats in acute SCI studies has been questioned by Petteys et al (2017).…”

“…They hinted that the vast majority of rat SCI research has limited benefits for the human patient [86] . Advantages of using rodents include their cost-effectiveness, well-studied SCI biology, low ethical restrictions for research, and standardized methods to effectively replicate SCI conditions [83,84,86] . The disadvantages include significant anatomical differences between humans and rodents.…”