Post-traumatic moderate systemic hyperthermia worsens behavioural outcome after spinal cord injury in the rat.

METHODS

A standardized rat model of compression spinal cord injury (SCI) was used to test the effect of transient systemic hyperthermia on long-term behavioural and morphometric outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the effect of hyperthermia on the development of spinal cord lesion after SCI.

METHODS

Institute of Neurobiology, Slovak Republic.

METHODS

Male Wistar rats (n=30) weighing between 300 and 330 g were used in the study. After incomplete spinal injury performed by balloon compression at the Th8-Th9 spinal level, rats were randomly divided into two groups. Rats in the treatment group were maintained hyperthermic for 3 h (rectal temperature at 40.5+/-0.5 degrees C), immediately after SCI; rats from the control group received exactly the same procedure except that their rectal temperature was maintained at 37+/-0.5 degrees C.

RESULTS

The 3 h of post-traumatic hyperthermic treatment worsened behavioural outcome after SCI. Morphometric analysis showed that hyperthermia had a deleterious effect on white and grey matter, but the results did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that systemic hyperthermia exacerbates secondary processes in the lesion and significantly worsens behavioural outcome after traumatic SCI in the rat.