During spinal cord injury (SCI), glutamate excitotoxicity and astrocytic scar formation can impede repair. In a preliminary study we found that ketamine, a N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor non-competitive antagonist, can contribute to functional recovery post SCI. Therefore, we investigated the cellular basis for this recovery with respect to neural progenitor cells using an in vitro cell culture model. We examined whether ketamine and glutamate influenced the proliferation, differentiation, and migration of differentiating endogenous neural progenitor cells (NPCs) found in the subventricular zone and spinal cord. Our study illustrates that the post functional recovery may have been due to ketamine’s influence on delaying spinal cord NPCs derived astrocyte maturation and migration while increasing radial glial cell migration. These results are promising since ketamine administration may help alleviate some of the adverse affects glutamate has on the NPCs found in the spinal cord following SCI.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OOU.#10393/24112 |
| Date | 07 May 2013 |
| Creators | Shanmugalingam, Ushananthini |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thèse / Thesis |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds