Gait analysis in rats with peripheral nerve injury

Rats are commonly used to study peripheral nerve repair and grafting. The traditional footprint method to assess functional recovery is messy, indirect, and not useful when contractures develop in the animal model. The aim of the present study was to establish an accurate, reproducible, but simple, method to assess dynamic limb function. The basic quantitative aspects of a normal gait were characterized from 59 recorded walks in 23 rats. The video was digitized and analyzed frame by frame on a personal computer. Seven parameters of the gait were assessed: (1) walking speed; (2) stance phase, swing phase and right to left stance/swing ratio; (3) step length and step length ratio; (4) ankle angles at terminal stance and midswing; (5) tail height; (6) midline deviation; and (7) tail deviation. These gait parameters were then applied to groups of animals with sciatic (group S), tibial (group T), and peroneal (group P) nerve injuries. A discriminant analysis was performed to analyze each parameter and to compute a functional score. We found that the video gait analysis was superior to the footprint method and believe it will be very useful in future studies on peripheral nerve injury.