A Long-Term Pilot Study on Sex and Spinal Cord Injury Shows Sexual Dimorphism in Functional Recovery and Cardio-Metabolic Responses

More than a quarter of a million individuals in the US live with spinal cord injury (SCI). SCI disrupts neural circuitry to vital organs in the body. Despite severe incidences of long-term peripheral complications from SCI, the cardio-metabolic consequences and divergences in sex-related responses are not well described. We examined the effects of SCI on functional recovery, cardiac structure and function, body composition, and glucose metabolism on adult female and male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. SCI was induced at T10 via contusion. Measured outcomes include behavioral assessment, body weight, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) for body composition, echocardiography for cardiac structure and function, intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test (IPGTT) for glucose metabolism, insulin tolerance test (ITT), and histology of cardiac structure at the endpoint. There was a decrease in body fat percentage in both sexes, with SCI females disproportionately affected in percent body fat change. Left ventricular internal diameter during systole (LVIDs) was decreased in SCI females more than in SCI males. No significant differences in glucose metabolism were observed up to 20 weeks post-injury (PI). These data show significant cardio-metabolic differences as a consequence of SCI and, furthermore, that sex is an underlying factor in these differences.