It was hypothesized that superparamagnetic nanoparticles encapsulated in a silica shell with a fluorescent dye could be functionalized with axonal tracers and could be used for serial, non-invasive imaging with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for axon tract tracing. Nanoparticles functionalized with amine, octadecyl, silica, and biotinylated dextran amine were manufactured and characterized with MRI, scanning electron microscopy, and UV-visible, infrared, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Nanoparticle concentrations of 10 mM were not toxic to adult rat neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and labeled approximately 90% of cells. Nanoparticles were assessed for anterograde and retrograde tract tracing in adult rat models. With MRI and microscopy, the nanoparticles did not appear to trace axons but did provide an MRI signal for up to 3 weeks post implantation. While functionalized nanoparticles did not appear to trace axons, they are not toxic to NPCs and may be used as a MRI contrast agent in the neural axis.

Sociologists have only recently paid attention to how men experience physical disability. However, current research continues to ignore how different racial groups experience it. The goal of this study was to examine how black and white men experience life with a physical disability. Using qualitative research techniques involving in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 10 black and 10 white men, I focus on how meanings of disability and masculinity shift after a traumatic injury. Using symbolic interactionism and social construction as theoretical frameworks, I examine how these men formed and modified meanings for disability and masculinity through social interactions. I also analyze the strategies they use to manage a stigmatized identity. Finally, I explore how they negotiate a masculine identity within larger social contexts. My findings suggest that black and white men’s constructions of masculinity and disability are more similar than different on all levels. Furthermore, these men used three strategies to negotiate their new social identities: reinforcing idealized masculinity, modified masculinity, and lost masculinity.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that causes its victims to experience functional deficits. Inflammation plays a complex role in the progression of SCI. While some inflammatory cells attenuate further damage to the spinal cord tissue, other inflammatory mediators exacerbate the damage. Attenuating the detrimental aspects of inflammation after SCI is an attractive neuroprotective strategy that could potentially lead to significant functional improvement. In this regard, intravenous immunoglobulin G (IgG), which has many proposed immuno-modulatory mechanisms, is a potential treatment candidate. In this study, we investigated the neuroprotective properties of IgG by examining its effects after SCI at the molecular, cellular, and neurobehavioral levels. We observed that IgG treatment after SCI is associated with significant reduction in pro-inflammatory mediators and significant improvement in neurobehavioral recovery compared to the control. The results of the study suggest that IgG could potentially be used as an immuno-modulatory therapy for SCI.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating condition accompanied by motor and sensory deficits and a reduced quality of life. Current treatment options are limited and are associated with variable efficacy and a risk of adverse effects. The pathophysiology of SCI is initiated by a primary mechanical insult to the spinal cord, followed by a complex series of deleterious events known as secondary injury. Secondary injury processes include free radical formation, glutamate excitotoxicity, inflammation and cell death. Apoptotic cell death in particular plays a key role in the secondary injury processes and exacerbates tissue degradation and loss of function. The role of Fas-mediated apoptosis in SCI pathophysiology is poorly defined in the literature to date. Correlative evidence suggests that this form of cell death is delayed and occurs in white matter adjacent to sites of primary damage. The cellular and temporal mechanisms of Fas-mediated apoptosis following experimental SCI were evaluated using a clinically relevant clip compression SCI model in the rat. Furthermore, therapeutic manipulation of Fas activation using a soluble form of the Fas receptor (sFasR) was carried out to establish the efficacy and clinical relevance of targeting this aspect of secondary injury. This work shows that Fas-mediated apoptosis is an important contributor to secondary SCI pathology. Oligodendrocytes are targeted by this form of cell death in a delayed fashion post-injury, providing an opportunity for therapeutic intervention. Intrathecal administration of sFasR following SCI reduced post-traumatic apoptosis, improved cell survival, enhanced tissue preservation and resulted in an improved motor recovery. Administration of sFasR was effectively delayed by up to 24 hours post-injury, however a shorter delay of 8 hours post-injury was most efficacious. A surprising result emerged from this work. Delayed intrathecal administration of IgG following SCI showed significant efficacy in both cellular and tissue level outcomes, as well as at the functional level. Fas-mediated apoptosis is an important aspect of secondary SCI pathophysiology and is an attractive therapeutic target. The beneficial outcomes of manipulating Fas activation using sFasR provide further evidence for this. Future work will refine this treatment strategy, bringing it into the SCI patient population.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that causes its victims to experience functional deficits. Inflammation plays a complex role in the progression of SCI. While some inflammatory cells attenuate further damage to the spinal cord tissue, other inflammatory mediators exacerbate the damage. Attenuating the detrimental aspects of inflammation after SCI is an attractive neuroprotective strategy that could potentially lead to significant functional improvement. In this regard, intravenous immunoglobulin G (IgG), which has many proposed immuno-modulatory mechanisms, is a potential treatment candidate. In this study, we investigated the neuroprotective properties of IgG by examining its effects after SCI at the molecular, cellular, and neurobehavioral levels. We observed that IgG treatment after SCI is associated with significant reduction in pro-inflammatory mediators and significant improvement in neurobehavioral recovery compared to the control. The results of the study suggest that IgG could potentially be used as an immuno-modulatory therapy for SCI.

More than one million people are living with spinal cord injury (SCI) in North America alone. Restoring lost motor function can alleviate SCI-related health problems, as well as markedly increase the quality of life enjoyed by individuals with SCI. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) can replace motor function in individuals with SCI by using short electrical pulses to generate contractions in paralyzed muscles. A wide range of FES applications have been proposed, but few application are actually available for community use by SCI consumers. A major factor contributing to this shortage of real-world FES applications is the lack of a feasible closed-loop control algorithm. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a closed-loop control algorithm that is suitable for use in practical FES applications. This thesis consists of three separate studies. The first study examined existing closed-loop control algorithms for FES applications, and showed that a method of testing FES control algorithms under realistic conditions is needed to evaluate their likely real-world performance. The second study provided such a testing method by developing a non-idealities block that can be used to modify the nominal response of electrically stimulated muscle in simulations of FES applications. Fatigue, muscle spasm, and tremor non-idealities are included in the block, which allows the user to specify the severity level for each type of non-ideal behaviour. This nonidealities block was tested in a simulation of electrically induced knee extension against gravity, and showed that the nominal performance of the controllers was substantially better than their performance in the realistic case that included the non-idealities model. The third study concerned the development and testing of a novel observer-based sliding mode control (SMC) algorithm that is suitable for use in real-world FES applications. This algorithm incorporated a fatigue minimization objective as well as co-contraction of the antagonist muscle group to cause the joint stiffness to track a desired value. The SMC algorithm was tested in a simulation of FES-based quiet standing, and the non-idealities block was used to determine the probable performance of the controller in the real world. This novel controller performed very well in simulation, and would be suitable for use in selected practical FES applications. The work contained in this thesis can easily be extended to a wide range of FES applications. This work represents a significant step forward in closed-loop control for FES applications, and will facilitate the development of sophisticated new electrical stimulation systems for use by consumers in their homes and communities.

Neuropathic pain (NP) after spinal cord injury (SCI) can significantly and negatively affect a person’s quality of life and is often refractory to currently available treatments. In order to advance the field and find effective therapeutic avenues; signs, symptoms, and biomarkers in humans should be identified and related to specific pain-generating mechanisms. The present work utilizes quantitative sensory testing (QST) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to evaluate the relationship between the functional integrity of the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway (DCML), the spinothalamic tract (STT), and metabolic markers of neuronal loss and glial activation in the thalamus of persons with/without NP after SCI. This work was based on the hypothesis that the presence/severity of NP after SCI is dependent both on function of ascending somatosensory pathways and changes in neuronal and glial markers in the thalamus. The results indicate that NP is associated with a decreased afferent DCML input to the thalamus resulting in a loss of inhibitory neurons and that residual function from STT afferents may contribute to thalamic glial activation and NP. Based on this work, in combination with previous studies in animals and humans, it can be proposed that NP after SCI partly results from the combination of residual STT function and loss of neuronal inhibition leading to neuronal hyperexcitability in the spinal cord and the thalamus. Thus, the presence of NP in chronic SCI is dependent on several underlying mechanisms which may be measured in human subjects with methods such as QST and MRS. Clinical implications and recommendations for further research are enclosed.

Brainstem derived serotonin (5-HT) normally facilitates spinal motoneuron excitability and inhibits sensory afferent transmission and associated spinal reflexes. Because the 5-HT innervation of the spinal cord is almost exclusively derived from brainstem neurons, spinal cord injury leads to an immediate and dramatic loss of 5-HT and this in turn leads to the simultaneous loss of motoneuron excitability and increase (disinhibition) of sensory afferent transmission. This thesis examined how spinal cord 5-HT receptors adapt over the months after SCI (chronic injury) to compensate for the loss of 5-HT. We showed that after SCI 5-HT2B and 5-HT2C receptors become constitutively active (active in the absence of 5-HT) with chronic injury, and this leads to a recovery of motoneuron excitability and contributes to the recovery of locomotor function. Unfortunately, this also contributes to the development of muscle spasms when combined with the disinhibition of sensory afferent transmission. In contrast, 5-HT1 receptors that modulate sensory afferent transmission do not become constitutively active after chronic SCI, and this contributes to the continued disinhibition of sensory afferent transmission and associated hyperreflexia and muscle spasms after chronic SCI. However, exogenous application of 5-HT1B and 5-HT1F receptor agonists can restore inhibition over sensory afferent transmission and ultimately reduce muscle spasms. In summary, 5-HT2 receptors exhibit a remarkable adaptation to the loss of 5-HT with SCI, whereas 5-HT1 receptors do not. Understanding and promoting this natural plasticity may help in the development of better therapeutic interventions for treating SCI.

In the adult central nervous system (CNS) several factors are implicated in the failure of neurons to regenerate after spinal cord injury (SCI). However, this reduced ability of injured CNS neurons to regenerate can be improved by under certain conditions. For instance, in adult dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons, injury to its peripheral branch (unilateral conditioning lesion) prior to injury of its central DRG branch (dorsal column cut) enhances the intrinsic capability of some but not all CNS afferent neurons to regenerate. The exact mechanism mediating this type of response is not known. However, previous studies by other groups have proposed that the regeneration of these CNS afferent neurons might be associated with the inflammatory response following injury to the peripheral DRG branch. Our general aim, was to examine the involvement of the immune response in the regeneration of the CNS DRG branch, as part of the pre-conditioned lesion model. To test this, three questions/hypotheses were investigated. Firstly, we investigated the effects of vaccination in pre-conditioned lesion animals using a peripheral nerve homogenate (PNH, sciatic nerve) as the immunogen. Given the regenerative capabilities of peripheral nerves, we proposed that exposure to this homogenate could enhance the limited regeneration of CNS fibres, after pre-conditioning of DRG neurons. Our results showed that in adult and/or neonatal Sprague Dawley (SD) rats PNH-vaccinated, had greater number of regenerated fibres, as compared to injury matched saline-vaccinated controls. Conversely, passive exposure to PNH through parental vaccination resulted in the suppression of this regenerative trigger. This suppressed competence of CNS fibres to regenerate was indirectly correlated with a reduced number of macrophage cells throughout the SCI epicentre, as compared to greater macrophage numbers found in the adult and/or neonatal treated groups. Secondly, we explored the possibility that a systemic inflammatory effect originating from the peripheral conditioning lesion, might be able to contribute to the regeneration of other injured neurons within the matured CNS. Again, using adult SD rats, we pre-conditioned the peripheral DRG branch as previous and changed the location of the CNS injury from the spinal cord to the optic nerve. Where alike any other injured neuron within the CNS, fails to regenerate. Unfortunately, our results from anterograde or retrograde labelling did not find any regenerated optic nerve fibres, although, we did find macrophage numbers to be higher in pre-conditioned lesion animals as compared to sham-operated animals. Therefore, it is possible that the pre-conditioning peripheral lesion might be allowing for a greater macrophage infiltration into the CNS compartment. Finally, we determined whether an early macrophage infiltration into the CNS compartment could be correlated with the observed CNS regeneration, characteristic of the pre-conditioned lesion model. To test this, we temporarily depleted macrophages before, during and after peripheral nerve lesion, via liposomal clodronate delivery. Our results from anterograde and retrograde labelling of spinal cord fibres revealed no regenerated CNS fibres in macrophage depleted animals, only in injury matched controls. In conclusion, macrophage cells play a beneficial role in the regeneration of CNS afferent fibres of pre-conditioned lesion DRG neurons. This most likely occurs through activation of intrinsic somatic DRG responses, as well as, an increased macrophage activation. We believe this inflammatory response to be of favourable phenotypic characteristic to the regeneration of injured CNS neurons, especially those in proximity to the DRG cell body. In addition, we propose that the conditioning peripheral lesion permits an influx of macrophage cells into the CNS compartment before injury of the CNS DRG branch, which is also likely to be supporting regeneration of afferent fibres. Future studies should evaluate the possibility that activated inflammatory cells might be infiltrating into the CNS under minimal blood-brain barrier disruption. It is clear that a complex communication between the nervous and immune system is occurring after the initial peripheral injury.

A forward dynamic model was developed to predict the performance of Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) individuals cycling an isokinetic ergometer using Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) to elicit contractions of the quadriceps, hamstring and gluteal muscles. Computer simulations were performed using three inter-connected models: a kinematic model of segmental linkages, a muscle model predicting forces in response to stimulation, and a kinetic model predicting ergometer pedal forces resulting from muscle stimulation. Specific model parameters for SCI individuals were determined through measurements from isometric and isokinetic contractions of the quadriceps muscles elicited using surface stimulation. The muscle model was fitted to data resulting from these isolated experiments in order to tailor the model's parameters to characteristics of muscles from SCI individuals. Isometric data from a range of knee angles were used to fit tendon slack lengths to the rectus femoris and vastus muscles. Adjustments to the quadriceps moment arm function were not able to improve the match between measured and modelled knee extension torques beyond those using moment arms taken from available literature. Similarly, literature values for constants from the muscle force - velocity relationship provided a satisfactory fit to the decline in torque with angular velocity, and parameter fitting did not improve this fit. Passive visco-elastic resistance remained constant for all velocities of extension except the highest (240 deg/s). Since knee angular velocities this high were not experienced during cycling, a visco-elastic dampener was not included within the present cycling model. The rise and fall in torque following NMES onset and cessation were used to fit constants to match the rate of change in torque. Constants for the rise in torque following NMES onset were significantly altered by changes in knee angle, with more extended angles taking longer for torque to rise. This effect was small, however, within the range of angles used during cycling, and consequently was not included within the cycling model. The decline in torque after NMES cessation was not affected by knee angle. A period of five minutes cyclical isometric activity of the quadriceps resulted in torque declining by more than 75% from rested levels. The activation time constants were largely unaffected by this fatigue, however, with only a small increase in the time for torque to decline, and no change in rise time or the delay between stimulation changes and resulting torque changes. The cycling model, therefore, did not incorporate any effect for changes in activation timing with fatigue. Performance of the full model was evaluated through measurements taken from SCI individuals cycling a constant velocity ergometer using NMES elicited contractions of the quadriceps, hamstring and gluteal muscles. Pedal transducers measured forces applied to the pedals for comparison between measured and modelled values. A five minute period of continuous cycling using just the quadriceps muscles produced similar results to those found for isolated knee extension. External power output dropped by 50% over the five-minute period, however there was no change in the pattern of torque production with fatigue. Cycling experiments were conducted using single muscle groups across a range of NMES firing angles. Experimental protocols were designed to seek the firing angles for each muscle that maximised power output by that group. Changes in power output in response to firing angle changes were not large, however, in comparison to the effects of cumulative fatigue and inconsistent power output between trials. This lead to large uncertainties in the determination of those firing angles that maximised power output by each muscle. Results suggest that NMES firing angles to maximise power output by the quadriceps muscles were relatively similar for each subject. For the hamstring muscles, however, substantial differences were observed in the range of firing angles that maximised power output. Results for the gluteal muscles were variable, with some subjects not applying any measurable torque to the cranks, even with maximal stimulation applied. The model produced a good match to experimental data for the quadriceps muscles, both in the shape of pedal force curves and the firing angles that maximised external power output. The individual variability in hamstring responses was not, however, predicted by the model. Modification of the relative size of the hamstrings' moment arms about the hip and knee substantially improved the match between measured and modelled data. Analysis of results suggests that individual variability in the relative size of these moment arms is a major cause of variation in individual's response to hamstring stimulation. There were apparent limitations in the model's ability to predict the shape of crank torques resulting from stimulation of the gluteus maximus muscle. It is suggested that further research be conducted to enable modelling of this muscle using a range of fibre lengths and moment arms.