Central Plasticity of Cutaneous Afferents Is Associated with Nociceptive Hyperreflexia after Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Figure 7

Percent hemisection injury and correlation between injury severity and DCN afferent sprouting. (a) Size of damaged tissue was measured on longitudinal sections stained with Luxol fast blue and Cresyl violet 6 weeks after T10 hemisection SCI. Percent hemisection injury was calculated as the maximal, lateral width of the damaged tissue (the length of the purple line) divided by the lateral width of the entire spinal cord tissue (the length of the black line) times 100. This was averaged across serial longitudinal sections at every 100 μm in individual animals as shown in a dorsal-ventral reconstruction of a representative animal. (b) Summed immunoreactive axon areas for CTB⁺ A fibers and IB4⁺ C fibers (Figure 5) labeled on right (injured, purple circle) or left (noninjured, white circle) side of animals were plotted against the measured percent injury in each animal at T7 and T13 levels. Linear regression was analyzed between the percent injuries and the summed axon areas from both sides shown as Pearson’s and values.

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