The aim of this work was to develop a new model of spinal cord injury caused by focal and unilateral transient ischemia after ET-1 microinjection in the dorsal funiculus and to evaluate the sensorimotor alterations of the anterior paw of rats (Wistar). Fifty (n = 50) animals (CEPAE / UFPA protocol BIO007912), who were trained, thirty-three (n = 33) were selected to compose control (n = 15), sham (n = 6) and injury (n = 12) groups. By using a micropipette, we injected the volume of 250 nL of saline (sham) or endothelin-1 (lesion) near the medial dorsal artery of the cervical segment C4 at a depth of 1 mm from the pial surface of the spinal cord. ET-1 induced cystic cavity formation of 0.421 mm2 (± 0.035 mm2, n = 3) on the corticospinal tract and suprajacent white matter, ipsilateral to the microinjection site that can be measured in cross-sections (50 μm) stained by the Nissl technique. The motor functions of the forepaw were evaluated by specific sensorimotor tests before and after injury at 3, 7 and 14 days. The results were evaluated by the ANOVA statistical test with Tukey post-hoc analysis (α = 0.05). Our results show in pasta test that after injury there is a compensatory motor behavior in which the non-preferential forepaw assumes the functions of the preferential forepaw. The Staircase test revealed a decrease in the ability to grasp the object with the preferred paw and the Contact test showed a decrease in sensitivity of the preferred paw.
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