Fig. 1

Experimental plan and treatment groups. Animals that received spinal cord contusion injury were pseudo-randomly assigned to four groups. Rats with intraperitoneal and intrathecal (cisterna magna) saline injections were planned to be evaluated as one control group unless behavioral evaluation showed statistical differences between them. One animal was lost due to bleeding during spinal cord surgery, two animals had to be excluded from the study because open field evaluation revealed an incomplete lesion (BBB at 2 dpo) and two rats died during the observation period. In the histological evaluation, treatment groups were also compared to tissue samples of non-injured animals