Following Spinal Cord Injury Transected Reticulospinal Tract Axons Develop New Collateral Inputs to Spinal Interneurons in Parallel with Locomotor Recovery

Figure 2

dSTAG animals displayed superior locomotor ability compared to cSTAG animals. Contralateral (contra) and ipsilateral (ipsi) hindlimb BBB scores of dSTAG rats were not significantly different (a), whereas contralateral hindlimb scores of cSTAG rats were significantly higher than ipsilateral hindlimb scores () as assessed by 2-way repeated measures ANOVA. Post hoc testing showed that the contralateral hindlimb outperformed the ipsilateral hindlimb of cSTAG animals at weeks 3 (), 4 (), 5 (), 6 (), and 7 (). Average BBB score of the two hindlimbs was significantly greater for the dSTAG group compared to the cSTAG group () from weeks 1 to 3 and 5 to 7 (; (c)). Error bars represent the SEM. Contralateral and ipsilateral are relative to the T10 SCI.

(a)

(b)

(c)