Sex and Strain-Specific Variations in Motor Recovery Following Compression Spinal Cord Injury: Comparison of Sprague-Dawley and Wistar Rats

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Prior studies have noted varied, spontaneous motor recovery in rat strains after spinal cord injury (SCI), but systematic comparisons of different locomotor measurements across different severity and sexes are lacking. Hence, we quantified hindlimb utilization in male and female Sprague-Dawley (SD) and Wistar rats following moderate and severe SCI. Methods: Compression SCI was induced using a 15-g clip for 180 s for moderate SCI or a 50-g aneurysm clip for 60 s for severe SCI in male and female SD and Wistar rats. Measures of locomotor performance using the Basso–Beattie–Bresnahan (BBB), CatWalk gait analysis, and horizontal ladder tests were taken postoperatively and weekly for seven weeks. Results: BBB scores indicated greater spontaneous recovery in SD rats, with females showing higher scores than males following moderate and severe SCI. No sex or strain differences were observed in the horizontal ladder test. The CatWalk results indicated greater average hindlimb swing speed in SD rats following moderate SCI, but greater print area was observed in Wistar rats after severe SCI, although female SD rats had greater print area than either male SD or female Wistar rats following moderate SCI. Conclusions: The findings that SD rats, especially females, exhibited greater spontaneous motor recovery following moderate SCI indicate the need to consider the sex and strain of rats when conducting therapeutic testing following moderate SCI. The significance of these findings is that they should facilitate the use of appropriate rat models for translational research in SCI that can be applied to future clinical trials.