The goal is to determine whether axons of a damaged spinal cord can be induced to regenerate. As injections of exogenous, activated macrophages have not led to appreciable axonal regeneration across the cord lesion, attempts are now being made to inhibit some of the deleterious events such as cyclo~oxygenase generation by administering indomethacin and the monoamine oxidase inhibitor, deprenyl. The spinal cord of adult rats is crushed epidurally , at T-8 of rats, by compressing the cord between the blades of a fine forceps, separated by a 0.5 mm thick metal stop. Axons are identified by immunostaining for neurofilaments. As the pathological changes in damaged cords are variable, so are the number of intact axons. Immunostaining of GAP-43 at high dilution, is being continued to see if intact axons can be distinguished from regenerating ones in rats being treated currently. The cell types congregating at the lesion are being identified immunohistochemically to see if there is a predominant type that might be associated with the greatest number of regrowing axons.
