Functional impairment after spinal cord injury (SCI) is partially attributed to neuronal cell death, with further degeneration caused by the accompanying apoptosis of myelin-forming oligodendrocytes. The Eph receptor protein tyrosine kinase family and its cognate ligands, the ephrins, have been identified to be involved in axonal outgrowth, synapse formation, and target recognition, mainly mediated by repulsive activity. Recent reports suggest that ephrin/Eph signaling might also play a role as a physiological trigger for apoptosis during embryonic development. Here, we investigated the expression profile of EphA7, after SCI, by using a combination of quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR) and immunohistochemical techniques. QRT-PCR analysis showed an increase in the expression of full-length EphA7 at 7 days postinjury (DPI). Receptor immunoreactivity was shown mostly in astrocytes of the white matter at the injury epicenter. In control animals, EphA7 expression was observed predominantly in motor neurons of the ventral gray matter, although some immunoreactivity was seen in white matter. Furthermore, blocking the expression of EphA7 after SCI using antisense oligonucleotides resulted in significant acceleration of hindlimb locomotor recovery at 1 week. This was a transient effect; by 2 weeks postinjury, treated animals were not different from controls. Antisense treatment also produced a return of nerve conduction, with shorter latencies than in control treated animals after transcranial magnetic stimulation. We identified EphA7 receptors as putative regulators of apoptosis in the acute phase after SCI. These results suggest a functional role for EphA7 receptors in the early stages of SCI pathophysiology.

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a b s t r a c tIn this paper, the thermal behavior of hollow clay bricks made up of paper waste has been studied and their thermal performance has been optimized. On the one hand, both strength and thermal properties of different paper waste concentrations have been obtained by means of laboratory tests. Thermal conductivity of the microporous brick materials with additives produced in this study reduced from 0.68 W/m K to 0.39 W/m K compared with that of the sample without additives. On the other hand, the finite element method (FEM) has been applied to the nonlinear numerical thermal analysis of three different hollow bricks, including radiation and convection phenomena inside holes. Next, using the design of experiments (DOE) over the FEM models, several parameters such as the material conductivity, the convection and radiation properties and the mean brick temperature have been studied. In general, the thermal resistance is a nonlinear function that depends on the geometry of the recesses, the material properties and the temperature distribution. In all analyzed cases, minimizing the material thermal conductivity of bricks and decreasing the recesses surface radiation emissivity caused a lower thermal transmittance in the brick. Finally, the most important conclusions and the main findings of this research are exposed.