Journal article
Passive Hindlimb Cycling Enhances Tolerance of Cardiac Electrical Conduction in Rats with Spinal Cord Injuries
Journal of neurotrauma, v 42(23-24)
14 Apr 2025
PMID: 40227565
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
High-level spinal cord injury (SCI) often disrupts supraspinal control of sympathetic input to the heart. The resulting imbalance in the autonomic nervous system increases the risk of developing cardiac arrhythmias. It was previously demonstrated that passive hindlimb cycling (PHLC) effectively maintains or improves bodily function including cardiovascular performance following SCI. However, it remains unclear whether the exercise can affect cardiac electrical disorders. To address this specific question, we complemented a complete SCI at a high-thoracic level in rats and then performed PHLC for 5 or 10 weeks. Naive rats or those receiving injury alone served as controls. Subsequently, a telemetric transmitter was implanted to record blood pressure and electrocardiogram. In 24-h resting recordings, cycling training did not influence SCI-induced hypotension but significantly reduced the events of spontaneous autonomic dysreflexia. When colorectal distension was employed to artificially trigger autonomic dysreflexia, a fewer number of severe arrhythmias (e.g., atrioventricular block, premature ventricular contraction single, and sinus pause) were found in animals with 10-week PHLC compared with injury controls. As a stress test, a series of increasing concentrations of dobutamine was administered to stimulate cardiac sympathetic activity. Consequently, various types of arrhythmias occurred in animals with SCI alone, whereas very few were detected in animals obtaining exercise training for 10 weeks. Furthermore, pharmacological intervention disclosed that exercise appeared to reduce unopposed parasympathetic tone that arose post to injury. Thus, the results suggest that activity-based training for the long term improves autonomic balance to enhance tolerance of cardiac electrical conduction following SCI.
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Details
- Title
- Passive Hindlimb Cycling Enhances Tolerance of Cardiac Electrical Conduction in Rats with Spinal Cord Injuries
- Creators
- Marissa Cusimano - Drexel UniversityVeronica J Tom - Drexel UniversityJohn D Houle - Drexel UniversityShaoping Hou - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of neurotrauma, v 42(23-24)
- Publisher
- Mary Ann Liebert
- Number of pages
- 12
- Grant note
- NIH/NINDS: R01 NS121336 Pennsylvania Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement: SAP 4100083087 Missouri Spinal Cord Injury/Disease Research Program (SCIDRP): R01NS106908, R01NS122371
This work was supported by NIH/NINDS R01 NS121336, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement (SAP 4100083087), and the Missouri Spinal Cord Injury/Disease Research Program (SCIDRP) 2024 fund to S.H., and R01NS106908 and R01NS122371 to V.J.T.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Neurobiology and Anatomy; Pharmacology and Physiology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001466017600001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105003875389
- Other Identifier
- 991022048321604721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Clinical Neurology
- Critical Care Medicine
- Neurosciences