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Neural Injury Research Unit
Research
Injuries to the nervous system, in particular the spinal cord, cause a high level of morbidity and mortality, particularly amongst young people. Understanding how the nervous system functions and how it reacts to injury is essential if we are to help regeneration and repair of the nervous system and thus improve outcomes of people suffering from the consequences of these injuries.
Neuroscience involves some of the most exciting challenges in biology today. Our lab conducts both basic and clinical research ranging from animal studies of the anatomical, cellular and behavioural basis of neural disease and injury to assessment of human spinal cord injury.
About the Group
The Neural Injury Research Unit (NIRU) was founded in 1996 by Professor Phil Waite and has continued to grow and develop. After Professor Waite retired in 2008, Dr Catherine Gorrie took over as the unit head. NIRU is located in the School of Medical Sciences, UNSW and is a member of Brain Sciences UNSW, an institute founded to encourage and facilitate collaborative, cross-disciplinary research with the purpose of better understanding normal and abnormal brain functioning. The Neural Injury Research Unit comprises academic and research staff, postgraduate, honours and medical students who are working on various projects.
Current Research Projects
Spinal cord injury continues to be a major cause of disability, particularly amongst young people involved in road related trauma, falls and sports injuries. Each year in Australia, approximately 300 people sustain a severe traumatic spinal injury. Particularly distressing is the fact that the typical spinal injury patient is young and otherwise healthy. Many are left wheelchair-bound, with permanent disabilities and constant dependence for the rest of their lives.
Reducing secondary damage in SCI using Connexin 43 mimetic peptide
The time course of secondary injury offers a window of opportunity for acute intervention. Peptide5, a mimetic peptide against the gap junction protein connexin43, can be delivered within hours of an initial injury, limiting inflammation, preventing the spread of damage and improving functional outcomes. In collaboration with researchers at Auckland University, we have tested this mimetic peptide for treatment of spinal cord injury, using an ex vivo rodent model ( Fig 1) as well as completed dose response studies for peptide5 in an in vivo rodent model of contusion spinal cord injury.
Figure 1. Reduced swelling in spinal cord explants following Connexin43 peptide treatment (O'Carroll et al, 2008)
Repair of injured spinal cord using OECs
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In collaboration of researchers at Griffith University, our group has shown that a special type of glial cell, the human olfactory ensheathing cell can reduce lesion size and astrogliolosis (Fig 2) and promote recovery of movement (Fig 3) after contusion injury in rats. We are now investigating the mechanisms by which OECs act on the spinal cord to promote recovery.
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Figure 2. Immunohistochemistry on rat spinal cord tissues sections showing reduced astrogliosis, swollen axons and activated macrophage response | Figure 3. Graph showing increased hindlimb locomotion for OEC treated animals (Gorrie et al 2010) |
Effects of age, gender, spinal level and loading conditions on spinal injury risk in children
The incidence of SCI in children is relatively low in comparison to adults however children are more likely to sustain SCIs of higher severity that lead to greater functional impairment, requiring more intensive rehabilitation and care. Assoc. Prof Bilston and her colleagues have recently completed detailed reviews of incidence and mechanisms of child spinal injuries in Australia. These identified child motor vehicle occupants as the highest priority group, and that (regardless of child restraint status) child age, gender and the crash type are major predictors of spinal injury.
We will undertake studies to determine the effect of different combinations of spinal loading conditions (e.g. speed, displacement and duration) on the extent of spinal cord injury. This may identify vehicle impact scenarios that may place children at an increased risk of SCI. Further this study will provide a description of the underlying biomechanical conditions inherent in these risks.
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| Figure 4. Vertebral dislocation model | Figure 5. Axonal Injury in the spinal cord exhibiting AFP reactive axons (Fiford et al, 2004) |
Previous Research in NIRU
Spinal Cord Injury
- OECs in spinal cord transection repair
- Embryonic, adult bone marrow and adult neural stem cells as possible sources of spinal cord repair
- Treadmill training after spinal cord injury
- Cardiovascular function following spinal cord injury
- Autonomic dysreflexia in spinal cord injury
- Temperature regulation following spinal cord injury
- Reaching following nerve root injury
- Pain following nerve root injury
- Electrical perceptual threshold testing in human SCI patients
- Sympathetic skin response testing in human SCI patients
Motor Vehicle Accidents
- Neuropathology of older drivers and pedestrians
- Axonal injury in children following MVA
- Older pedestrian’s walking patterns
Other projects
- Sensory lateralization in Marmoset brains
- Trigeminal development in Wallabies
Staff and Students
Staff
Students
- Jie Zhang (PhD student, Auckland University, New Zealand)
- Tom Kural (Honours Student)
- Jieyu Chia (ILP Student)
- Rivita Ala-Kulju (Exchange student from Turku University, Finland)
Collaborations
National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research, Griffith University, Brisbane
- Professor Alan McKay-Sim
- Dr Ian Hayward
- Dr Colm Cahill
Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand
- Professor Colin Green – Department of Ophthalmology
- Professor Louise Nicholson - Department of Anatomy with Radiology
- Dr Simon O'Carroll – Department of Anatomy with Radiology
Neuroscience Research Australia
- Associate Prof Lynne Bilston
- Dr Elizabeth Clarke
- Dr Julie Brown
School of Medical Sciences, UNSW
- Gila Moalem-Taylor
- Nicole Jones
- Thomas Fath
Research Grants
- Medical Faculty Early Career Research Grant (2008)
- Neurological Foundation of New Zealand in association with Catwalk (2009)
- SpineCare Foundation (2009-10)
Recent NIRU Publications (2002 - present)
Journal Articles (since 2002)
- Gorrie, C.A., Haywood, I., Cameron, N., Kailainathan, G., Mackay-Sim, A., Nandapalan, N., Sutharsan, R., Wang, J., Waite, PME. (2010) Effects of human OEC-derived cell transplants in rodent spinal cord contusion injury. Brain Res. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2010.04.019
- Cloutier F, Lauschke JL, Carrive P. Compensatory mechanisms to maintain blood pressure in paraplegic rats: implication of central tachykinin NK-1 and NK-3 receptors? Neuropeptides. 2010 Apr;44(2):199-207.
- Leong GWS, Gorrie CA, Ng K, Rutkowski S and Waite PME (2009) Electrical perceptual threshold testing – a validation study. J. Spinal Cord Med 32: 140-146.
- Wu A, Lauschke JL, Morris R and Waite PME (2009) Characterisation of rat forepaw function in two models of cervical dorsal root injury. J Neurotrauma 26: 17-29.
- Kalincik T Jozefcikova K, Waite PME and Carrive C (2009) Local response to cold in rat tail after spinal cord transection. J. Appl Physiol 106:1976-85.
- Gorrie, CA, Brown, J, and Waite PME (2008) Crash characteristics of older pedestrian fatalities: dementia pathology may be related to 'at risk' traffic situations Accid. Anal. Prev. 40: 912-919.
- Gorrie, CA, Waite PME and Rogers, LJ (2008) Correlations between hand preference and cortical thickness in the secondary somatosensory (SII) cortex of the common marmoset, Callithrix Jacchus. Behav Neurosci, 122, 6,1343-51
- Laird AS, Finch AM, Waite PME, Carrive C (2008) Peripheral changes above and below injury level lead to prolonged vascular responses following high spinal cord injury. Am. J. Phys: Heart Circ. (In press).
- Laird AS, Wu A, Lauschke JL. Changes in motoneuron properties following spinal cord transection: does afferent input play a role? J Physiol. 2008 Jul 1;586(13):3031-2.
- Gorrie CA, Rodriguez M, Sachdev P, Duflou J, Waite PME (2007) Mild neuritic changes are increased in the brains of fatally injured older motor vehicle drivers. Accid Anal Prev. 39: 1114-20.
- Peisah C, Snowdon J, Gorrie C, Kril J, Rodriguez M (2007) Investigation of Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology in community dwelling older subjects who committed suicide. J Affective Dis. 99: 127-32.
- Waite, P.M.E., Gorrie, C.A Herath, N. and Marotte, L. (2006) Whisker Maps in Marsupials: Nerve Lesions and Critical Periods. Anat Rec A Discov Mol Cell Evol Biol 288(2): 174-81.
- Gorrie, CA, Rodriguez. ML, Sachdev, P, Duflou, J, Waite PME (2006) Increased neurofibrillary tangles in the brains of elderly pedestrians killed in traffic accidents. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 22:20-26
- Laird AS, Carrive C, Waite PME (2006) Cardiovascular and temperature changes in spinal cord injured rats at rest and during autonomic dysreflexia. J. Physiol 577: 539-48.
- Potas JR, Zheng Y, Moussa C, Venn M, Gorrie CA Deng C and Waite PME (2006) Augmented locomotor recovery following spinal cord injury in the athymic nude rat. J. Neurotrauma 23(5), 660-73.
- Deng, C, Gorrie, C, Hayward, I, Elston, B, Venn, M, Mackay-Sim, A, Waite, P.M.E (2006) Survival and migration of human and rat olfactory ensheathing cells in intact and injured cord. J. Neuroscience Res 83,1201-1212.
- Woodhouse A, Vincent AJ, Kozel MA, Chung RS, Waite PME, Vickers JC, West AK and Chuah MI (2005) Spinal cord tissue affects ensheathing cell proliferation and apoptosis. NeuroReport 16: 737-740.
- Choi EA, Leman S, Vianna DML, Waite PME and Carrive P (2005) Expression of cardiovascular and behavioural components of conditioned fear to context in T4 spinally transected rats. Autonomic Neurosci. 120: 26-34
- Fiford RJ, Bilson, LE, Waite PME and Lu J (2004) A vertebral dislocation model of spinal cord injury in rats. J. Neurotrauma 21: 451-458.
- Gorrie CA, Duflou J, Rodriguez M, Sachdev P and Waite PME (2003) Older pedestrian fatalities - does neurodegeneration play a role? Proc. Road Safety Research Policing and Education Conference (invited peer reviewed paper).
- Gorrie CA, Oakes, S., Duflou J, Blumbergs P. and Waite PME. (2002) Axonal injury in children following motor vehicle crashes: extent, distribution and size of axonal swellings using fl-APP immunohistochemistry. Journal of Neurotrauma 19(10); 1171-1182.
- Ho SM, Waite PME (2002) Effect of different anaesthetics on the paired-pulse depression of the H-reflex in adult rat. Exp. Neurol. 177, 494 - 502.
- Lu J, Feron F Mackay-Sim A and Waite PME (2002) Olfactory ensheathing cells promote locomotor recovery after delayed transplantation into transected spinal cord. Brain 125: 14-21.
- Zhu XO, de Permentier PJ and Waite PME (2002) Cholinergic depletion by IgG192-saporin retards development of rat barrel cortex. Dev. Brain Res (in press).
- Mark RF, Flett DL, Marotte LR and Waite PME (2002) Developmental onset of functional activity in the wallaby whisker cortex in response to stimulation of the infraorbital nerve. Somato Motor Res. (in press).
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Laboratory Head
Dr Catherine Gorrie
Room G23, Wallace Wurth
T (02) 9385 2462
F (02) 9385 2866
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Personal Research Profile
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