Effects of exercise training on urinary tract function after spinal cord injury.

Effects of exercise training on urinary tract function after spinal cord injury. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2016 Mar 16;:ajprenal.00557.2015 Authors: Hubscher CH, Montgomery LR, Fell JD, Armstrong JE, Poudyal P, Herrity AN, Harkema SJ Abstract Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes dramatic changes in quality of life including coping with bladder dysfunction which requires repeated daily and nightly catheterizations. Our lab has recently demonstrated in a rat SCI model that repetitive sensory information generated through task-specific stepping and/or loading can improve non-locomotor functions, including bladder function. To target potential underlying mechanisms, the current study included a forelimb-only exercise group to ascertain whether improvements may be attributed to general activity effects that impacts target organ-neural interactions or to plasticity of the lumbosacral circuitry that receive convergent somato-visceral inputs. Male Wistar rats received a T9 contusion and were randomly assigned into three groups two weeks post-injury - quadrupedal locomotion, forelimb exercise, or a non-trained group. Throughout the study (including pre-injury), all animals were placed in metabolic cages once a week for 24 hours to monitor water intake and urine output. Following the 10-week period of daily one-hour treadmill training, awake cystometry data were collected and bladder and kidney tissue harvested for analysis. Metabolic cage freque...
Source: Am J Physiol Renal P... - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Am J Physiol Renal Physiol Source Type: research