A comparison of behavioural effects and morphological features of grafts rich in cholinergic neurons placed in two sites of the denervated rat hippocampus

HPMA-RGD hydrogels seeded with mesenchymal stem cells improve functional outcome in chronic spinal cord injury

Chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) is characterized by tissue loss and a stable functional deficit. While several experimental therapies have proven to be partly successful for the treatment of acute SCI, treatment of chronic SCI is still challenging. We studied whether we can bridge a chronic spinal cord lesion by implantation of our newly developed hydrogel based on 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylamide, either alone or seeded with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and whether this treatment leads to functional improvement. A balloon-induced compression lesion was performed in adult 2-month-old male Wistar rats. Five weeks after injury, HPMA-RGD hydrogels [N-(2-hydroxypropyl)-methacrylamide with attached amino acid sequences--Arg-Gly-Asp] were implanted into the lesion, either with or without seeded MSCs. Animals with chronic SCI served as controls. The animals were behaviorally tested using the Basso–Beattie-Breshnahan (BBB) (motor) and plantar (sensory) tests once a week for 6 months. Behavioral analysis showed a statistically significant improvement in rats with combined treatment, hydrogel and MSCs, compared with the control group (P < 0.05). Although a tendency toward improvement was found in rats treated with hydrogel only, this was not significant. Subsequently, the animals were sacrificed 6 months after SCI, and the spinal cord lesions evaluated histologically. The combined therapy (hydrogel with MSCs) prevented tissue atrophy (P < 0.05), and the hydrogels were infiltrated with axons myelinated with Schwann cells. Blood vessels and astrocytes also grew inside the implant. MSCs were present in the hydrogels even 5 months after implantation. We conclude that 5 weeks after injury, HPMA-RGD hydrogels seeded with MSCs can successfully bridge a spinal cord cavity and provide a scaffold for tissue regeneration. This treatment leads to functional improvement even in chronic SCI.

Grafts of fetal septal cells after cholinergic immunotoxic denervation of the hippocampus: a functional dissociation between dorsal and ventral implantation sites

Three-month-old Long-Evans rats were subjected to intraseptal infusions of 0.8 microg of 192 IgG-saporin followed, 2 weeks later, by intrahippocampal suspension grafts containing fetal cells from the medial septum and the diagonal band of Broca. The suspensions were implanted in the dorsal or the ventral hippocampus. Sham-operated and lesion-only rats were used as controls. Between 18 and 32 weeks after grafting, all rats were tested in a water maze (using protocols placing emphasis on reference memory or on working memory) and an eight-arm radial maze. The lesion produced extensive cholinergic denervation of the hippocampus, as evidenced by reduced acetylcholinesterase-positivity and acetylcholine content. Depending upon their implantation site, the grafts restored an acetylcholinesterase-positive reinnervation pattern in either the dorsal or the ventral hippocampus. Nevertheless, the grafts failed to normalize the concentration of acetylcholine in either region. The cholinergic lesion impaired working memory performance in both the water maze and the radial maze. To a limited degree, reference memory was also altered. Grafts placed in the ventral hippocampus had no significant behavioral effect, whereas those placed in the dorsal hippocampus normalized working memory performance in the water maze. Our data show that infusion of 192 IgG-saporin into the septal region deprived the hippocampus of its cholinergic innervation and altered spatial working memory more consistently than spatial reference memory. Although the cholinergic nature of the graft-induced reinnervation remains to be established more clearly, these results further support the idea of a functional dissociation between the dorsal and the ventral hippocampus, the former being preferentially involved in spatial memory.

The fimbria-fornix/cingular bundle pathways: a review of neurochemical and behavioural approaches using lesions and transplantation techniques

Extensive lesions of the fimbria-fornix pathways and the cingular bundle deprive the hippocampus of a substantial part of its cholinergic, noradrenergic and serotonergic afferents and, among several other behavioural alterations, induce lasting impairment of spatial learning and memory capabilities. After a brief presentation of the neuroanatomical organization of the hippocampus and the connections relevant to the topic of this article, studies which have contributed to characterize the neurochemical and behavioural aspects of the fimbria-fornix lesion "syndrome" with lesion techniques differing by the extent, the location or the specificity of the damage produced, are reviewed. Furthermore, several compensatory changes that may occur as a reaction to hippocampal denervation (sprouting changes in receptor sensitivity and modifications of neurotransmitter turnover in spared fibres) are described and discussed in relation with their capacity (or incapacity) to foster recovery from the lesion-induced deficits. According to this background, experiments using intrahippocampal or "parahippocampal" grafts to substitute for missing cholinergic, noradrenergic or serotonergic afferents are considered according to whether the reported findings concern neurochemical and/or behavioural effects. Taken together, these experiments suggest that appropriately chosen fetal neurons (or other cells such as for instance, genetically-modified fibroblasts) implanted into or close to the denervated hippocampus may substitute, at least partially, for missing hippocampal afferents with a neurochemical specificity that closely depends on the neurochemical identity of the grafted neurons. Thereby, such grafts are able not only to restore some functions as they can be detected locally, namely within the hippocampus, but also to attenuate some of the behavioural (and other types of) disturbances resulting from the lesions. In some respects, also these graft-induced behavioural effects might be considered as occurring with a neurochemically-defined specificity. Nevertheless, if a graft-induced recovery of neurochemical markers in the hippocampus seems to be a prerequisite for also behavioural recovery to be observed, this neurochemical recovery is neither the one and only condition for behavioural effects to be expressed, nor is it the one and only mechanism to account for the latter effects.