LAUSR

Spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers a signalling cascade that produces oxidative stress and damages the spinal cord. Voltammetry is a clinically accessible technique to detect, monitor and guide correction of this potentially reversible secondary injury mechanism. Voltammetry is well suited for clinical translation because the method is inexpensive, simple, rapid, and portable. Voltammetry relies on the measurement of anodic current from a reagent free, electrochemical reaction on the surface of a small electrode. The present study tested the use of new disposable carbon nanotube based screen printed electrodes (CNT-SPE) for the voltammetric measurement of antioxidant current (AC). Spinal cord, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and plasma were obtained from Sprague-Dawley rats following SCI. Locomotor function following SCI was assessed by using the Basso, Beattie, Bresnahan (BBB) score. The more severe SCI caused a decline in spinal cord AC419 at 10 minutes (p < 0.05), 4 hours (p < 0.0001), and one day (p < 0.01) after injury compared to sham controls. It also caused a decline in plasma AC375 at one (p < 0.001) and three days (p < 0.05) after injury compared to their pre-injury baseline. Spinal cord AC419 correlated with plasma AC375 (r = 0.49, p < 0.01) and BBB score (r = 0.66, p < 0.0001) at one day after SCI. AC measured by CNT-SPE demonstrated a time and severity dependent decline following SCI. Plasma AC could serve as a surrogate marker for spinal cord AC.