Elsevier

Brain Research

Volume 450, Issues 1–2, 31 May 1988, Pages 94-100
Brain Research

Research report
Use of serotonin immunocytochemistry as a marker of injury severity after experimental spinal trauma in rats

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-8993(88)91548-XGet rights and content

Abstract

In experimental models of spinal cord trauma there is often a relatively poor correlation between light microscopic histological changes and motor recovery. Previously it was shown that spinal cord levels of immunoreactive TRH and substance P, by radioimmunoassay, are significantly reduced caudal to the injury site. Since much of the substance P and TRH in the spinal cord derives from cells within the ventral medulla, many of which also contain serotonin, we examined changes in serotonin immunoreactivity within the spinal cord caudal to the injury site in rats subjected to varying degrees of impact trauma to the thoracic cord. Reductions in immunocytochemical staining of serotonin in ventral gray matter of the lumbar region at two weeks after trauma were significantly correlated with the degree of injury severity as reflected by motor impairment. Changes in the region of the central canal, but not dorsal horn, were also correlated with injury severity. These findings indicate that serotonin immunocytochemical analysis may permit better correlation between anatomical and functional outcome after spinal cord injury than generally utilized light microscopic methods.

References (27)

Cited by (74)

  • Cograft of neural stem cells and schwann cells overexpressing TrkC and neurotrophin-3 respectively after rat spinal cord transection

    2011, Biomaterials
    Citation Excerpt :

    Lastly, we did not detect Hoechst 33342 signal in cells adjacent to the lesion epicenter that had features of host neurons. Due to the fact that there was no indication of CST or RST regeneration based on neurofilament ICC (data not shown), we decided to focus on regional sprouting of serotonergic (5-HT) fibers from primary descending pathways of motosensory modulation in the mammalian spinal cord with known benefits to locomotion recovery [42–47]. Anti-5-HT ICC depicted that some serotonergic neurites were present inside the lesion site.

  • The time course of serotonin 2A receptor expression after spinal transection of rats: An immunohistochemical study

    2011, Neuroscience
    Citation Excerpt :

    Thus, the upregulation of 5-HT2AR in the lateral intermediate zone in the L1-2 segments is likely to be related with recovery of locomotion following a lesion since these segments contain critical elements of the locomotor central pattern generator (reviewed by Guertin, 2009) and 5-HT2AR have been shown to be critical for locomotor network activation (Ung et al., 2008; Halberstadt et al., 2009). The changes in 5-HT expression after spinalization in the present study are in agreement with previous biochemical and immunohistochemical studies (Anden et al., 1964; Clineschmidt et al., 1971; Magnusson, 1973; Hadjiconstantinou et al., 1984; Faden et al., 1988). Although intraspinal 5-HT neurons were reported to exist in the spinal cord even after spinal transection (Newton and Hamill, 1988; Kong et al., 2010), we did not detect any 5-HT fibers in the ventral horn motoneuron region in the analyzed sections in 21 days and 28 days spinalized animals.

  • Implantation of adult bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells transfected with the neurotrophin-3 gene and pretreated with retinoic acid in completely transected spinal cord

    2010, Brain Research
    Citation Excerpt :

    It is extremely possible these axons may come from the regenerative fibers, but not the differentiated foreign cells, since more 5-HT-postive axons of AdvNT-3-RA-MSC-implanted group were found in the lesion site than those of other cell-implanted groups. We believe this finding is important, since a strong correlation between 5-HT regeneration and locomotor recovery in transected SCI is well established (Faden et al., 1988; Saruhashi et al., 1996; Zhang et al., 2007). Experimental evidence indicates that certain 5-HT axons descending from the brain provide a direct, excitatory input to spinal motoneurons that innervate hindlimb muscles (Alvarez et al., 1998).

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text