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A Computer-Supervised Assay for Reliable Preclinical Testing of Spinal Cord Therapeutics
Location: 25
Mentor: Dr. Hassan Al-Ali
According to the NSCIA, there are over 17,000 newly reported cases of spinal cord injuries (SCI) in the United States each year. SCI severely disrupts neurophysiological processes and reduces the quality of life of affected individuals. Developing therapeutics for SCI and obtaining FDA approval requires testing in animal models as a prelude to clinical testing in humans. When examining the effect of a unilateral hemi-contusion in rats, a reliable method is needed to assess the loss and recovery of forelimb motor function. The Mototrak system accurately measures this in rats using a computer-supervised isometric pull task. Sloan et al. previously demonstrated the superiority of this method over existing methods (Sloan, 2015). This could be due to several factors including reducing operator bias and interference combined with very sensitive force detection. Here, we developed and optimized a workflow for assessing forelimb motor function in an SCI model using male Long-Evans. To establish a pre-injury baseline, animals were trained through four stages with varying force thresholds and lever distances. After reaching competence, rats underwent unilateral hemi-contusion and were assessed in the Mototrak test. The assay robustly detected deficits in motor function resulting from the SCI. This impairment was characterized by a decrease in peak pull force, a decline in success rate, and a drop in pull trials over a period of four weeks post-SCI. These findings suggest that the Mototrak is a reliable clinically relevant assay for preclinical testing of SCI therapeutics in a rat model of SCI.
