Functional Repair of the Corticospinal Tract by Delayed Transplantation of Olfactory Ensheathing Cells in Adult Rats

Adult rats were trained to use their forepaws to retrieve a piece of food. Destruction of the dorsal corticospinal tract on one side at the level of the first cervical segment abolished the use of the ipsilateral forepaw for retrieval for at least 6 months after operation. Where a variable amount of the corticospinal tract was spared, there was a proportionate persistence of retrieval. In lesioned rats that had shown no retrieval for 8 weeks after operation, a suspension of olfactory ensheathing cells was injected into the lesion site. Starting between 1 and 3 weeks after transplantation, all rats with transplants bridging the lesion site resumed retrieval by the ipsilateral forepaw. Biotin dextran anterograde tracing shows regenerating corticospinal axons crossing the bridge, traveling caudally for ∼10 mm in the distal part of the corticospinal tract and forming terminal arborizations in the spinal gray matter. Functional recovery can occur when only ∼1% of the corticospinal tract axons are present.