Development and Characterization of a Novel Rat Model of Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy: The Impact of Chronic Cord Compression on Clinical, Neuroanatomical, and Neurophysiological Outcomes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is the most common cause of spinal cord impairment worldwide and is a risk factor for traumatic central cord syndrome. Despite advances in surgery, there are no effective neuroprotective treatments for CSM, which reflects a limited understanding of its pathophysiology. In order to develop therapeutic strategies, we have developed a novel rat model of chronic progressive cervical spinal cord compression that mimics CSM. A titanium-screw-based chronic compression device (CCD) was designed to achieve progressive cord compression at the C6 level. The CCD was fixed to the C2 and T2 spinous processes and a threaded screw was turned to induce compression. Sprague-Dawley rats (n=75) were divided into three groups: (1) sham (no compression, n=6), (2) mild compression (1.4 mm stenosis, n=27), and (3) severe compression (2.6 mm stenosis, n=42). Compression was evaluated using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). The area of spared white matter, extent of cord flattening ratio, and loss of neurons were assessed. Functional deficits were characterized using sensory-evoked potential (SEP) recordings, and with neurobehavioral tests: the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor rating scale, inclined plane, paw grip strength, and assessment of mechanical and thermal allodynia. Micro-CT confirmed progressive canal stenosis. The loss of intact white matter and cord flattening were significantly greater in rats with severe cord compression, and the number of neurons was reduced at the epicenter of cord compression. With chronic cord compression there was a significant decline in locomotor function, forelimb function, trunk stability/coordination, an increase in mechanical allodynia, and impaired axonal conduction. The CCD model results in chronic and precise cervical cord compression. The compression is associated with mechanical allodynia and measurable neurobehavioral, neurophysiological, and neuropathological deficits. We anticipate that the CCD model will enable the investigation of translationally-relevant therapeutic strategies for CSM.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".