Figure 1.

Flowchart of the experimental procedure.

Female, Sprague-Dawley rats, 9 weeks of age were divided into 2 groups: Sham (n= 3) and SCI (n= 3). A small incision was made in the thoracic region above the T10 vertebrae and a laminectomy performed (Krishna et al., 2013). The SCI group then received a weight drop contusion, by dropping a 10 g weight from 6.25 mm height and an impact head diameter of 2.5 mm onto the exposed dura of the spinal cord (Nguyen et al., 2017). Sham rats received the same surgical procedure but not the weight-drop procedure. All rats were euthanized 24 hours after surgery/injury and each brain was microdissected into the required identified regions. Each region was then processed for RNA and protein extraction and downstream real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and Western blot analyses. SCI: Spinal cord injury.