Automated Gait Analysis to Assess Functional Recovery in Rodents with Peripheral Nerve or Spinal Cord Contusion InjuryJohannes Heinzel 1,2,3, Nicole Swiadek 2,3, Mohamed Ashmwe 2,3, Alexander Rührnößl 2,3, Viola Oberhauser 2,3, Jonas Kolbenschlag 1, David Hercher 2,3
1Department of Hand-, Plastic, Reconstructive and Burn Surgery, BG Trauma Center Tubingen, Eberhard Karls University, 2Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, 3Austrian Cluster for Tissue Regeneration
Automated gait analysis is a feasible tool to evaluate functional recovery in rodent models of peripheral nerve injury and spinal cord contusion injury. While it requires only one setup to assess locomotor function in various experimental models, meticulous hard- and soft-ware adjustment and training of the animals is highly important.