MOTOR-PERFORMANCE SCORE - A NEW ALGORITHM FOR ACCURATE BEHAVIORAL-TESTING OF SPINAL-CORD INJURY IN RATS

To evaluate the usefulness of standard neurological tests in predictin g the neurological outcome after photochemically induced spinal cord l esions in rats, we inflicted injuries of different severity to adult f emale rats, The behavior of the rats was followed for 6 weeks and the results of the behavioral tests were correlated with morphological ind icators of tissue destruction at the end of this period. We found many behavioral tests to be highly correlated with the loss of tissue, whe reas some tests were inaccurate in correlating with degree of tissue d estruction. Motor score, beam walk, and righting reflex were all highl y correlated with the volume of the lesion as well as with the depth o f the lesion cavity at its epicenter. We propose a protocol for neurol ogical evaluation of this type of spinal cord injury consisting of six individual tests, hierarchally organized such that injured rats can b e divided into 11 groups of neurological deficit, scored from 10 to 0. This so-called motor performance score is fast and easy to perform an d shows high correlation with the lesion volume, and is thus suitable for neurological evaluation of photochemically induced spinal cord inj ury. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.