Electrical Stimulation Enhance Neural Regeneration and Locomotor Function in Complete Spinal Cord Injury of Rats

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to devastating functional loss, partly due to a hostile post-injury microenvironment characterized by detrimental events like excessive calcium influx and apoptosis, which also limit the efficacy of reparative strategies such as neural tissue transplantation. It has been reported that electrical stimulation (ES) could modulate these events. Here, we investigated whether ES could enhance SCI repair, particularly when combined with allogeneic adult spinal cord tissue (aSCT) transplantation. Adult rats with complete thoracic SCI received aSCT grafts, with a subset also receiving continuous ES for two weeks. It found that locomotor function was significantly improved in rats receiving ES in conjunction with transplantation compared to those with transplantation alone. Histologically, ES treatment markedly enhanced neuronal survival and increased GAP-43⁺ axonal fiber density in the injured spinal cord. Mechanism studies revealed that ES downregulated L-type voltage-gated calcium channel (L-VGCC) and cleaved Caspase-3 expression. These results indicate that ES, when applied with aSCT transplantation, significantly promotes motor functional recovery and neural repair by mitigating calcium influx and apoptosis. Therefore, ES could be considered as a potent therapeutic strategy to augment reparative processes for SCI.