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Failure of severed adult central nervous system (CNS) axons to regenerate could be attributed with a reduced intrinsic growing capacity. Severe spinal cord injury is frequently associated with a permanent loss of function because the surviving neurons are impaired to regrow their fibers and to reestablish functional contacts. Peripheral nerves are known as good substrate for bridging CNS trauma with neurotrophic factor addition. We evaluated whether fibroblastic growth factor 2 (FGF-2) placed in a gap promoted by complete transection of the spinal cord may increase the ability of sciatic nerve graft to enhance motor recovery and fibers regrow. Methods: We used a complete spinal cord transection model. Rats received a 4 mm-long gap at low thoracic level and were repaired with saline (control) or fragment of the sciatic nerve (Nerve) or FGF-2 was added to nerve fragment (Nerve+FGF-2) to the grafts immediately after complete transection. The hind limbs performance was evaluated weekly for 8 weeks by using motor behavior score (BBB) and sensorimotor tests-linked to the combined behavior score (CBS), which indicate the degree of the motor improvement and the percentage of functional deficit, respectively. Neuronal plasticity were evaluated at the epicenter of the injury using MAP-2 and GAP-43 expression. Results: Spinal cord treatment with sciatic nerve and sciatic nerve plus FGF-2 allowed recovery of hind limb movements compared to control, manifested by significantly higher behavioral scores. Higher amounts of MAP-2 and GAP-43 immunoreactive fibers were found in the epicenter of the graft when FGF-2 was added. Conclusions: FGF-2 added to the nerve graft favored the motor recovery and fiber regrowth. Thus, these results encourage us to explore autologous transplantation as a novel and promising cell therapy for treatment of spinal cord lesion.

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The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) are pointed to as the mammals central circadian pacemaker. Aged animals show internal time disruption possibly caused by morphological and neurochemical changes in SCN components. Some studies reported changes of neuronal cells and neuroglia in the SCN of rats and nonhuman primates during aging. The effects of senescence on morphological aspects in SCN are important for understanding some alterations in biological rhythms expression. Therefore, our aim was to perform a comparative study of the morphological aspects of SCN in adult and aged female marmoset. Morphometric analysis of SCN was performed using Nissl staining, NeuN-IR, GFAP-IR, and CB-IR. A significant decrease in the SCN cells staining with Nissl, NeuN, and CB were observed in aged female marmosets compared to adults, while a significant increase in glial cells was found in aged marmosets, thus suggesting compensatory process due to neuronal loss evoked by aging.

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