Administration of glutamate into the spinal cord at extracellular concentrations reached post-injury causes functional impairments

Guo Ying Xu, Michael G. Hughes, Liping Zhang, Lisa Cain, David J. McAdoo

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    27 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    In vivo experiments addressing the role of released glutamate in damage caused by neurotrauma seldom administer glutamate itself because it usually produces relatively little damage when administered into central nervous system (CNS) tissue in vivo. However, because of recent observations that glutamate administered into the spinal cord at the levels attained following spinal cord injury (SCI) kills neurons and oligodendrocytes, we tested the effects of administering glutamate at those concentrations on locomotor function. The Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) test and activity box measures demonstrated that those glutamate concentrations produce lasting functional impairments. Several parameters provided by the activity box provided sensitive measures of the degree of post-SCI impairment, demonstrating their substantial potential for evaluating outcomes of SCI. Results obtained also enhance evidence that glutamate toxicity contributes to secondary damage following SCI and suggest that damage to white matter is an important contributor to such damage.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)271-276
    Number of pages6
    JournalNeuroscience Letters
    Volume384
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Aug 26 2005

    Keywords

    • Activity box
    • Excitotoxicity
    • Functional impairment
    • Glutamate
    • Microdialysis
    • Oligodendrocyte
    • Spinal cord injury

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Neuroscience(all)

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