Early metabolic reactivation versus antioxidant therapy after a traumatic spinal cord injury in adult rats

Disability after traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) results from physical trauma and from “secondary mechanisms of injury” such as low metabolic energy levels, oxidative damage and lipid peroxidation. In order to prove if early metabolic reactivation is a better therapeutic option than antioxidant therapy in the acute phase of TSCI, spinal cord contusions were performed in adult rats using a well‐characterized weight drop technique at thoracic 9 level. After TSCI, pyrophosphate of thiamine or non‐degradable cocarboxylase (NDC) enzyme was used to maintain energy levels, antioxidants such as superoxide dismutase and catalase (ANT) were used to decrease oxidative damage and methylprednisolone (MP), which has both therapeutic properties, was used as a control. Rats were divided into one sham group and six with TSCI; one of them received no treatment, and the rest were treated with NDC, MP, NDC + MP, NDC + ANT or ANT. The ANT group decreased lactate and creatine phosphokinase levels and increased the amount of preserved tissue (morphometric analysis) as well as functional recovery (Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan or BBB motor scale). In contrast, NDC treatment increased lipid peroxidation, measured through thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) levels, as well as spinal cord tissue destruction and functional deficit. Early metabolic reactivation after a TSCI may be deleterious, while natural early metabolic inhibition may not be a “secondary mechanism of injury” but a “secondary neuroprotective response”. While increased antioxidant defence after a TSCI may currently be an ideal therapeutic strategy, the usefulness of metabolic reactivation should be tested in the sub‐acute or chronic phases of TSCI and new strategies must continue to be tested for the early ones.