Therapeutic effect of simvastatin for neurofunction recovery after spinal cord injury in rat

English Keywords:Spinal cord injury  Simvastatin  Electrophysiology  Rat

English Abstract:

  【Abstract】 Objective：To determine the therapeutic efficacy of simvastatin for neurofunction recovery after acute spinal cord injury（SCI）in rat.Method：spinal cord injury was induced in adult female rats after laminectomy at T9-T10.The SCI animals were randomly divided into 3 groups：sham treated group；5mg/kg and 10mg/kg simvastatin treated group（n=8）.Simvastatin was administered orally at 1 day after SCI and then daily administration for 5 weeks.Locomotor functional recovery was assessed during 8 weeks after operation by performing open-filed locomotor test and inclined-plane test.After that，motor evoked potentials（MEPs）and somatosensory evoked potential （SEPs） were assessed to evaluate the integrity of spinal cord pathways.Then the animals were killed and Luxol fast blue staining was used to assess the content of spared myelin.Result：At 2w after operation，the BBB score in group D was higher than that in group B （Ｐ＜0.05）.At 3w，the BBB scores in group D and C were higher than that in group B （Ｐ＜0.05），further，the score in group D was higher that in group C（Ｐ＜0.05）.At 3w after operation，the inclined plate angles in group D and C were higher than that in group B（Ｐ＜0.05），further，at 4w，5w，7w and 8w，the angles in group D were higher than those in group C （Ｐ＜0.05）.As for the sensory evoked potential，the latency in group D and C were lower than that in group B （Ｐ＜0.05），further，the latency in group D was more lower than that in group C （Ｐ＜0.05）；The amplitude in group D was higher than that of B group（Ｐ＜0.05）.For the motor evoked potential，the latency in groupD and C were lower than that in group B （Ｐ＜0.05），further，the amplitude in group D was more higher than that in group C（Ｐ＜0.05）.For the pathological，group D and C had more myeling pared than group B （Ｐ＜0.05）.Conclusion：Acute administration of Simvastatin can improve neurofunction recovery after SCI.