Chronic Interventions to Improve Bladder and Kidney Dysfunction after Spinal Cord Injury

This project seeks to expand urinary tract outcomes in the mouse model of chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) that can be used to test effects of therapies on bladder function. Chronic bladder dysfunction occurs after SCI and results in a high-pressure urine retention, which if left untreated, causes potentially lethal vesicoureteral reflux and kidney damage. A loss of somatic control of the external urethral sphincter (EUS) leads to detrusor sphincter dyssynergia (DSD), resulting in co-contraction of both the EUS and detrusor muscles during voiding, which increases bladder pressure. Little is known about how neurogenic bladder effects the kidneys in the mouse model of SCI, which limits the translatability of treatment strategies from bench-to-bedside. Unfortunately, few studies have evaluated the effects of promising treatments in both locomotor and bladder outcomes after SCI in mice and no studies have evaluated the chronic effects on kidney health. This pilot project will investigate the effects of SCI induced bladder dysfunction on the development of kidney damage in mice with chronic SCI.