earticle

영어

The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether locomotor stimulation training could have beneficial effects on spinal cord plastici-ty consequent to sensorimotor restriction (SR). Male Wistar rats were exposed to SR from postnatal day 2 (P2) to P28. Control and experimen-tal rats underwent locomotor stimulation training in a treadmill from P31 to P52. The intensity of the synaptophysin and caspase-3 immunoreac-tion was determined on ventral horn of spinal cord. The synaptophysin immunoreactivity was lower in the ventral horn of sensorimotor restrict-ed rats compared to controls animals and was accompanied by an in-creased caspase-3 immunoreactivity. Those alterations were reversed at the end of the training period. Our results suggest that immobility af-fects the normal developmental process that spinal cord undergoes in early postnatal life influencing both pro-apoptotic and synapse markers. Also, we demonstrated that this phenomenon was reversed by 3 weeks of treadmill training.