Swimming as a model of task-specific locomotor retraining after spinal cord injury in the rat

Magnuson, David S K; Smith, Rebecca R; Brown, Edward H; Enzmann, Gaby; Angeli, Claudia; Quesada, Peter M; Burke, Darlene (2009). Swimming as a model of task-specific locomotor retraining after spinal cord injury in the rat. Neurorehabilitation and neural repair, 23(6), pp. 535-45. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications 10.1177/1545968308331147

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BACKGROUND: The authors have shown that rats can be retrained to swim after a moderately severe thoracic spinal cord contusion. They also found that improvements in body position and hindlimb activity occurred rapidly over the first 2 weeks of training, reaching a plateau by week 4. Overground walking was not influenced by swim training, suggesting that swimming may be a task-specific model of locomotor retraining. OBJECTIVE: To provide a quantitative description of hindlimb movements of uninjured adult rats during swimming, and then after injury and retraining. METHODS: The authors used a novel and streamlined kinematic assessment of swimming in which each limb is described in 2 dimensions, as 3 segments and 2 angles. RESULTS: The kinematics of uninjured rats do not change over 4 weeks of daily swimming, suggesting that acclimatization does not involve refinements in hindlimb movement. After spinal cord injury, retraining involved increases in hindlimb excursion and improved limb position, but the velocity of the movements remained slow. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that the activity pattern of swimming is hardwired in the rat spinal cord. After spinal cord injury, repetition is sufficient to bring about significant improvements in the pattern of hindlimb movement but does not improve the forces generated, leaving the animals with persistent deficits. These data support the concept that force (load) and pattern generation (recruitment) are independent and may have to be managed together with respect to postinjury rehabilitation.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Theodor Kocher Institute
UniBE Contributor:	Enzmann, Gaby
ISSN:	1545-9683
Publisher:	Sage Publications
Language:	English
Submitter:	Factscience Import
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2013 15:13
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:22
Publisher DOI:	10.1177/1545968308331147
PubMed ID:	19270266
Web of Science ID:	000267095200002
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/32160 (FactScience: 197091)