Experimentally, the authors demonstrate the standardization of the technique for captivating the motor evoked potential in rats through transcranial electric stimulus. Fifty Wistar rats, under anesthesia, were prepared according to the current rules of the Laboratory of Spinal Cord Trauma and Peripheric Nerves Studies of the Orthopaedics and Traumatology Institute of Hospital das Clínicas, Medical School of São Paulo. Average minimal latency of the upper limb responses was 2.5 ms and of the lower limb 6.5 ms. Average amplitude of the responses was 3.0 mV and 2.5 mV on upper and lower limbs, respectively. The authors conclude that the technique for obtaining motor evoked potential in rats, as presented in this study, is efficient for the analysis of the electrophysiological evolution of medullar lesions, unprecedent in our field, and it can be reproduced in a simple way, and presents quality and applicability standards similar to those seen in global literature.
Spinal cord Injuries; Rats; Wistar; Eletric stimulation
