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Establishment of Neurobehavioral Assessment System in Tree Shrew SCT Model

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A Correction to this article was published on 09 November 2020

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Abstract

Tree shrews, possessing higher developed motor function than rats, were more suitable to study neurological behavior after spinal cord injury (SCI). Here, we established a feasible behavioral assessment method to detect the degree of ethology recovery in tree shrew subjected to spinal cord transection (SCT). Tree shrews were divided into normal group, sham group, and SCT group. The tree shrew in sham group was subjected to laminectomy without SCI, while the tree shrews in the SCT group were subjected to a complete SCT in thoracic 10 (T10). A novel neurobehavior assessment scale was established, in which, the behavior index including slow advancement, fast advancement, standing, shaking head, voluntary jump, lateral movement, and tail status, was determined, respectively. Meanwhile, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was applied to observe the structure of the spinal cord, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based white matter mapping was used to show the fibers of the spinal cord. As a result, a marked decrease in locomotor function and consciousness was seen in tree shrews with SCT, and the detection of MRI showed the collapsing of nerve fibers after SCT is completely cut and there is corresponding to the behavior change. Together, the present study provided a novel and feasible method that can be used to assess the neurobehavior in SCT model from tree shrews, which may be useful to the SCI translational study in future preclinic trial.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Program Innovative Research Team in Science and Technology in Yunnan Province (No. 2017HC007). It was also supported by grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81471268 and 81960214). We would like to thank Professor Fei Liu of Department of Anesthesiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University and Professor Zhao-Qiong Zhu of Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University for their technical support.

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Author notes

  1. Yang-Yang Wang, Jie-Dong Wang and Lei Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, 563000, Guizhou, China

    Yang-Yang Wang & Liu-Lin Xiong

  2. Institute of Neuroscience, Animal Zoology Department, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, 650031, China

    Jie-Dong Wang & Ting-Hua Wang

  3. Institute of Neurological Disease, Translational Neuroscience Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Yang-Yang Wang, Qi-Qin Dan, Qing-Jie Xia, Ting-Hua Wang & Liu-Lin Xiong

  4. School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, Sansom Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 5000, South Australia, Australia

    Liu-Lin Xiong

  5. Molecular Imaging Laboratory, Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Lei Wang

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  1. Yang-Yang Wang
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  2. Jie-Dong Wang
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  3. Lei Wang
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  7. Liu-Lin Xiong
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Contributions

L-L.X., T-H.W., and Q-J.X. participated in the design of the study. L-L.X. and T-H.W. guided the implementing of the whole project and revised the manuscript. Y-Y.W. and J-D.W. also participated in the revision. Y-Y.W., L.W., Q-Q.D., and J-D.W. performed experiments and data analysis and wrote the manuscript. Y-Y.W., Q-Q. D., and J-D.W. established the SCT models.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ting-Hua Wang or Liu-Lin Xiong.

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Wang, YY., Wang, JD., Wang, L. et al. Establishment of Neurobehavioral Assessment System in Tree Shrew SCT Model. J Mol Neurosci 70, 308–319 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-019-01414-9

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